


Defining Ianto

by Meatball42



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Flirting, Bullying, Communication Failure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e03 Ghost Machine, Episode: s01e07 Greeks Bearing Gifts, F/M, Geeky, He just plays video games and snarks, M/M, Misunderstandings, Owen doesn't actually work, Queer Themes, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 64,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4957525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torchwood Three is blackmailed into accepting a London agent into their midst, and they're not happy about it. Meet Ianto Jones, friendly archivist who's trying to figure out who he is and find a place in Cardiff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of chapters to this, but I just started a new job and I _will_ forget to post, so please do poke me if you want to read more!
> 
> Also... I wrote this several years ago, and upon re-reading I am face-palming all over the place for word choice and characterization and basic storyness, so: Disclaimer! This is Young!Meatball's writing! It's a fun story, and it meant a lot to me at the time of writing so it has a dear place in my heart, but if you want to see better quality I have written other things since, which can be viewed at your leisure. *Vanna Whites to fic list*

"Sit down, please, Ianto."

Ianto sat. "I'd like to thank you again, ma'am, for speaking to me personally and for helping to arrange a transfer. It really means so much to my sister's family and me that I can be there to support her through her treatment."

"It's my pleasure, Ianto," Yvonne Hartman smiled, sitting back in her large, comfortable chair. The movement highlighted the wide expanse of blue sky and London skyline below, visible through the glass walls of the head of Torchwood's corner office. The Director moved her head, causing her thoroughly treated hair to bounce youthfully. "The health and wellness of our employees and their families is one of our biggest concerns."

Ianto ignored the inappropriate thoughts sarcastically piling in his mind about who exactly was represented by that 'our' and if they knew all the Torchwood resources the Director was wasting to pay for her wardrobe and beauty treatments. "Thank you, ma'am."

"There are a few things I wanted to discuss with you, Ianto." Yvonne flipped open Ianto's personnel file. "I heard you've been in a relationship with one of the research head's secretaries, Lisa Hallet? That it was rather serious?"

"Yes ma'am," Ianto swallowed. He'd hoped to avoid this subject.

"And she has no plans to move to Cardiff with you?" Yvonne's intelligent eyes studied Ianto's face for flaws.

"No ma'am," Ianto answered evenly, focusing on keeping his expression and voice level. "Lisa is keeping our apartment here in London and most of the furniture."

"I'm very sorry about how these circumstances must have torn you, Ianto," Yvonne said, compassion softening her voice. The part of Ianto that hated to be pitied struck out mentally against her image, but he decided to assume she was being sincere. It'd make it easier to look like he was respecting his boss, in any case.

"If there are any other services Torchwood can provide to ease the transition, you only need ask. Does your sister need any help paying for the chemotherapy?" she asked with a caring smile.

"Thank you ma'am, but the company has already been more than generous and I believe I'll be able to handle the rest on my own," Ianto informed her. He was becoming a bit tired of the niceties and decided to move things along. "Your secretary notified me that there were a few last minute details concerning my posting in Torchwood Cardiff that need to be straightened out?"

"Ah, yes." Yvonne straightened in her chair. "Here's the gist of it, Ianto. I'm being honest with you," she said confidentially. "The head of Torchwood Three, Captain Harkness, has expressed reluctance in the past with having London operatives working with his team. I believe him to be a rather reckless agent who prefers to play things by hand rather than by the book, which, as you know, is our by-word here at Torchwood One." Ianto nodded. "For this reason, he is resistant to any attempts to organize the Cardiff branch and bring them closer to the clean-cut, transparent, modern sort of company we have here in London."

Ianto was feeling a growing foreboding in his gut. "Are you saying the Captain is denying my transfer?" he asked slowly.

"Not at all!" Yvonne smiled with a hint of teeth. "In fact, I have no doubt that by the end of today he will be most convinced of the need for a London archivist. That's not the problem."

"And what is the problem, ma'am?"

Yvonne placed her pen delicately on top of her paperwork and folded her hands together. "We have received reports that, recently, some of the Captain's operations have not been, shall we say, above-board. This is obviously a problem in an institute which reports directly to the Crown with the purpose of protecting the United Kingdom."

"And how might I be expected to help, Ms. Hartman?" Ianto's voice had acquired a slightly harder edge as he began to realize that this would not be the simple lateral transfer he'd hoped for.

"The Captain writes a weekly summary of his employees' activities for the London archives. We have reason to believe that, through either mere laziness or intentional censorship, not all of Cardiff's activities are being recorded in these reports. For the sake of organization and expediency, we would like you to compile your own weekly report to be submitted separately from Captain Harkness'."

Ianto thought for several moments, trying to come up with the best words. "If you'll pardon my saying so, ma'am, this is all beginning to sound like an Internal Affairs issue. Am I to assume that I am being asked to police other members of the Torchwood Institute and report of any wrongdoings?"

Yvonne let out a carefree laugh that had Ianto's back tensing up. "Nothing so James Bond, Ianto. We simply want to have a comprehensive report every now and again," she explained in a friendly manner. "God knows it's like pulling teeth getting Harkness to file anything correctly. Your job is to make up for the lackings in his reports. Anything he forgets about, I want you to remember, and if that happens to be evidence of wrongdoing, then, naturally, that should be reported as well. This isn't spying, Mr. Jones," she clarified, "just being a good secretary."

"Of course Ma'am," Ianto stood, pulse racing. "I apologize for my assumption."

"As long as we understand each other, Ianto," Yvonne said kindly, her finely manicured nails scraping Ianto's skin as he shook her hand.

"Crystal clear, Ma'am."

 

[*]

 

"What the- You're kidding me, Yvonne! No way in hell am I taking one of your regulation-quoting, penny-pinching paper-pushers just because you're too impatient to wait for useless files!... No I don't think I'm being unreasonable! I think I'm saving your man the time it'll take him to drive out here, get a foot shoved up his ass, and drive back to London!"

Tosh scurried up the last few steps and managed to close the door of the conference room before Jack's tirade continued. She began to spread her papers out on the table while Gwen, who was already working on her own forms across the table, spoke.

"Does this, er, happen very often?" the former constable questioned. She'd only been with Torchwood a few weeks and was trying very hard to familiarize herself with the foibles and quirks of the group.

"Only every time Her Nobleness calls down to the Cardiff outpost for some artifact or sommat," Owen answered, not taking his eyes off his GameBoy. "Jack can't stand 'er. Convinced she's gonna drive Torchwood and the rest of the UK into the ground."

"Why does he think that?" Gwen questioned curiously.

"'Cause she is." Owen slammed the console onto the table as a series of descending drones marked the end of his game. Tosh flinched at the sound, but went back to her files. Owen continued. "Torchwood One, in London, their motto is 'If it's alien, it's ours.' Not very similar to Jack's, which is-"

"The twenty-first century is when it all changes, and we have to be ready," Gwen recited, eyes flicking upwards as she remembered.

Owen rolled his eyes. "I'm fresh out of gold stars, Cooper." Gwen flipped him off. "So anyway, Jack thinks she's gonna ruin any chance the Earth has of a peaceful first contact. 'e's been tryin' to get her to change the policies for years now."

"What's the matter with what they've got, is it too, I don't know, violent? Unfriendly?" Gwen looked a bit lost as she tried to map an unknown world in her mind.

"Let's put it this way," Owen stated, leaning on his forearms on the table toward Gwen. "If a friendly alien species came to visit Torchwood London, I doubt they'd see the light of day again." He paused to let the sentiment sink into his new colleague, showed by the way her eyes became even more perfectly round. "Stuff that goes into Canary Wharf, doesn't often come out. Torchwood One is evil."

"And how do you know this all," Gwen challenged. "How do you know they're really so bad?"

"I've seen it with my own eyes, Gwen," Jack answered from the doorway. As one, Tosh, Owen and Gwen spun to look at him. The captain was slumped against the doorframe, hair ruffled and jaw tight. Jack looked straight at Gwen, expression intense.

"I've seen them dissecting the bodies of peaceful visitors to our planet, filing them away with a number and files as research subjects. I've seen humans that have been pulled through space and time, not allowed to leave secure Torchwood facilities for the rest of their severely shortened lives. I have watched aliens be executed and interrogated and studied and tested like lab rats and I am doing everything in my power to stop those practices." He took a deep breath, looking out over the Hub. Gwen let out the air she'd kept in while Jack's gaze was pinning her down, relieved that he'd finally looked away.

"Now we're getting a London stooge to file out paperwork and make us coffee. I always said I'd do everything I could to keep Torchwood Three safe from London's politics, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be."

"What are you saying, Jack?" Tosh asked, quietly but calmly. "You said she'd backed off on that."

"She had," Jack replied, still surveying his realm. "But that was before she got some good dirt on us."

"What's she usin' to blackmail us?" Owen demanded, scowling. One of his hands was curled into a fist around a pen.

"One of our operatives recently went psychotic and began killing civilians using illegally obtained alien technology," Jack explained, sarcasm layering his words. "This could be a big enough incident to spark off a full investigation into Torchwood Three's practices and activities, or..." he turned back to his team, "we take their man."

"You can fight it, can't you?" Gwen asked, feeling stunned. One moment her colleagues were discussing how dangerous these people were; now one was being invited into the Hub?

"Nope," Jack answered succinctly. "Political bureaucracy, I can't get around it. She's got us cornered."

"Then what will we do?" Gwen said aloud to a room which suddenly seemed far too quiet.

"Whoever they send, we make life miserable for 'em," Owen growled.

"We don't trust them as far as we can throw them," Jack finished.


	2. Chapter 2

Goodbyes in London were hard. It wasn't that Ianto was ever particularly popular, but working in the archives and making the best coffee in the Tower gave you a lot of opportunities for making friends. For Ianto's last week, news had gotten out about his transfer, and everyone had something to say, from the engineers he'd brew for when they came off sixteen-hour shifts to colleagues he'd never met who were amazed to meet someone who was going to join the oft-discussed Torchwood Cardiff.

After his last day of work, Ianto's archive gang took him out for one last pub night. Thankfully, they chose a different pub than the one they'd used for his birthday party, barely two weeks previously. The night was full of slurred toasts and teary farewells (which most of them would not remember in the morning) and when he woke up with a horrible headache the next morning Ianto had never been more grateful for his friends.

Lisa was conspicuously not at the flat when he returned to load the last of his things into the Camry. He took a final look around the apartment they'd shared for seven months and shut the door behind him.

Once he arrived in Cardiff, Ianto had two weeks before he was meant to report for duty at Torchwood Three. He stuffed his boxes into a corner of the guest room at his sister's house and promptly went forth with organizing the place. Since Rhiannon was laid down with breast cancer, the cramped house was even more of a mess. Johnny was working as many shifts as he could grab to try and keep up with his wife's medical bills and Mica and David, his sister's children, had little to no supervision and had spread their behavior out until it coated the entire house with dropped popsicles and scattered sweet wrappers.

Ianto knew he was giving up his title of 'lenient uncle' when he began forcing his niece and nephew into a cleaning and homework regimen, but he was not afraid to sit the two down and tell them how much their parents needed them to cooperate. It took a few days to sink in, but Ianto realized that much of their conduct had been caused by fear for their mother, and he was able to comfort them and convince them that bad behavior was not going to aid their mother's health.

Rhiannon was being so brave, and was determined not to let the disease affect her, but treatments knocked her down for days on end and she was unable to keep up with the housework. Ianto cared for her when the medications made her nauseous or tired, craving food or unable to eat. He made sure she was stocked up with her favorite DVDs and magazines and took over most of her duties.

In between becoming the new caretaker of his sister's family, Ianto searched for an apartment. Much as he cared for his family, living in such close quarters was doing his head in. Ianto was a friendly individual, but one who valued both peace and time alone. He found an apartment a few days before his leave time was over that was close enough to Torchwood Three's headquarters that he could walk if it was nice enough outside, but not too close that he'd feel environmentally unfriendly if he drove. He did little unpacking, preferring to set up the essentials and get back to his sister's home to cook another meal or take in another load of laundry.

The day he was meant to show up for work at Torchwood Three, Ianto's morning did not start off well. Mica hadn't finished her lego tower the night before and kept trying to work on it instead of getting ready for school. Ianto was making their pack lunches and pulling David away from his video game when he heard a retching from his sister's room. He sternly told David to finish getting Mica ready and went to Rhiannon.

"It's all right Ianto, I can clean it off," Rhiannon insisted, shakily pulling the covers away from the puddle on the floor. "You take care of Mica and David."

"Not a chance, Rhi," Ianto motioned back to the bed. "Rest, I can handle it."

After cleaning up the vomit and forcing Mica (wailing and crying) away from her lego tower, they were ten minutes late. David's school didn't start for a half hour after Mica's, so Ianto dropped him off, then walked Mica in and personally apologized to her teacher. Luckily, the immaculate suit and his tired charm won her over, and she took the apologies gracefully.

By the time Ianto arrived at the tourist office tucked into a nondescript corner of the marina, it was past eight thirty. Ianto had never been so late for work in his life, and he was mortified. Judging by the imposing figure glaring at him from the door, he had reason to be.

"You must be Jones." The man in the coat somehow managed to look at Ianto down his nose, which was quite a feat considering they were almost the same height. "Is this what they call work hours in London?"

Ianto winced. "I'm very sorry sir, there was an emergency. I was-"

"Don't let it happen again."

Ianto blinked twice, then followed the abruptly vanished man into the building. Almost immediately he had to fight a sneeze at the thick smell of dust in the room.

"This is the tourist office," the man explained. "It's our cover for getting in and out of Torchwood." He slammed his hand flat on a black button on the side of the service counter. A moment ago Ianto would've guessed it was a panic button, but behind him, a door disguised in the wall flew open. Having expected something subtle like that, he was not surprised, and if he wasn't mistaken, the man in the coat's scowl deepened when he didn't flinch.

The blue-eyes man stomped through the door and down the dark corridor behind it. Ianto walked quickly to keep up. "Might I assume I'm addressing Captain Harkness?" he asked politely.

"That's me." The captain walked straight into the elevator at the end of the hallway and spun around. "You coming or what?"

Ianto followed him into the lift wordlessly, beginning to understand that he'd been misled by Yvonne Hartman. It would seem that Captain Harkness was not the charming rogue he'd been briefed about when applying for the transfer, either that or his grudge against Torchwood One was much larger than Yvonne had implied. Either way, Ianto was not feeling very optimistic about his new job.

The ride passed quickly and in complete silence. When the doors opened at the end, Captain Harkness strode out, once again leaving Ianto to follow. They descended a few steps, then walked into the main Hub through a metal cage and sirens.

When Ianto felt this uncomfortable in a situation, he usually made it a point not to show his emotions. However, the entrance seemed to call for some description. Trying to keep his eyes from jumping out of his skull at the dimensions of the Hub, all completely hidden beneath the unsuspecting feet of Cardiff's population, Ianto said quietly, "Very impressive, sir."

The captain snorted. "Nothing like the Tower, I'm sure."

Ianto shrugged minutely. "It's unique." He meant it as a compliment, but from the way the other man's face twitched deeper into a frown, Ianto was sure it was not taken as such.

The captain led the way up onto a cement platform filled with workstations and a couch and introduced the people who were waiting there.

"Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper," he announced quickly. Ianto looked at a Welshwoman with wide, nervous eyes on the couch, a Japanese-looking woman who barely glanced at him from her multiple computer screens, and a man who didn't look away at all from what appeared to be a game of space invaders on his computer. "This is Ianto Jones. Ianto Jones, the team."

"It's a pleasure." Ianto tried out a smile, hoping these people would be more receptive than the captain had been. Gwen looked toward Captain Harkness nervously before giving him a small, gap-toothed smile, and he thought Toshiko's head may have nodded slightly. The moment of silence stretched on pointedly too long.

"I'll give you the tour," Captain Harkness said, a false smile twisting his face. Once again, he walked off, expecting Ianto to follow.

The archives were a mess. Used to the immaculate shelves and filing system of Torchwood London's archives, the pervasive scent of mold and the water damage readily apparent were enough to give Ianto nightmares.

The coffee machine, though, was a different story. It was a technological wonder. None of the dozens of oddly placed buttons of levers were labeled, but Ianto had seen machines like it and was positive he could figure it out. He pulled out the bag of beans he'd brought along to make a good impression and got to work, conscious of captain Harkness' eyes watching his every move.

When he turned around, a white mug filled with steaming coffee in his hand, Ianto felt much better. The frosty reception had worried him, but no one was able to resist Jones coffee. He held out the mug as an offering. "I assume you take your coffee black, sir?"

The grunt to the affirmative was accompanied by a distrusting look as the captain slowly raised the cup to his lips. After a sip, the crease between his eyes disappeared and he looked into the mug. For a moment, Ianto could almost see the normal man beneath the attitude, and he smiled unconsciously. The captain looked up at him and the glare was back.

"It's passable."

The last spark of hope in Ianto's chest died an ice-blue death


	3. Chapter 3

When Jack and Jones had disappeared into the depths of the Hub, Owen spoke up. "What the bloody hell was that?" he half-shouted. "'e's wearin' a tossin' suit!"

"I thought it looked nice, Owen," Gwen admonished. "And I think we should give him a chance."

"A chance to stab us in the back while we're doing all the bloody paperwork he's gonna force on us," Owen retorted. He chucked his wireless mouse onto his desk, causing a mug of pens to spill out over his desk. "Shit."

"We've only just met him!" Gwen insisted. "We can't assume the worst about someone without even knowing what they're like!"

"I do know what 'e's like," said flatly. "He'll walk in here with a bunch of coffees, sayin' 'sir' and 'ma'am' and generally makin' himself a right arse, then expect us to fall in line and become fucking Torchwood One drones. They're all the same." He stood up and jerked his lab coat off the back of his chair before storming into the medical bay.

Gwen was about to follow him and continue the argument, but Tosh stopped her. "He's just in a bad mood today."

"Today isn't any different than yesterday Tosh, he's a wanker, and that's that." She crossed her arms on the couch. "I'm not lettin' this go. I'm not going to treat him like a leper without even getting to know him!"

Tosh saved her current project and left her desk, sitting next to Gwen on the sofa. "You know why he's here, right?" she asked quietly.

Gwen looked around, suddenly paranoid. "Because none of us knows how to fill out the Institute's forms, and Jack doesn't have any patience for politics?"

"He's a spy, Gwen," Tosh murmured. "He's here to report us if we go against London's regulations. That's why Jack's so worried. We do a lot of things here that London wouldn't agree with," she explained. "If any of that got back to them…" she shrugged, her expression telling Gwen how worried she was.

Gwen considered this. "That's what you think, and I know you'd know better than me," she said in a placating manner, "but I can't do this. I can't just take it for granted that we can't trust him, when he could just be a normal bloke, wantin' a job."

Tosh nodded. "I can't say I expected anything different from you," she said with a small smile.

Gwen replied in kind. "Then at least you're not surprised." She patted Tosh's shoulder then went to her desk.

It might have been a half hour later when Gwen looked up from her computer and jumped. "Oh, sorry!" she squeaked. "I didn't hear you!"

"My apologies, ma'am," Jones answered, face blank. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, thank you," Gwen breathed, smiling after her shock. A clean white mug was placed on her desk amidst the clutter and she picked it up to take a sip. "This is… possibly the best coffee I've ever had," she murmured, feeling like her taste buds were being lulled into post-coital bliss.

"So I've heard." Jones gave her a small smile and suddenly, Gwen noticed that, in addition to being Welsh and the new guy, Jones was actually very handsome.

"Do you want to go out for drinks?" she blurted, then colored. Jones looked startled, and awkward. "Not, like, I mean… I have a boyfriend," she stuttered. "But, as colleagues. So we can get to know you," she clarified.

Jones smiled warmly. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I'm going to be busy this evening." He actually did look sorry, which was what gave Gwen the confidence to continue.

"Tomorrow for lunch, then. I'm not taking no for an answer!" She gave him her brightest smile, and could almost  _see_  his resistance splintering.

"All right, then. If you insist," Jones nodded one last time before taking his tray of coffees and moving off toward the others. Gwen smiled, feeling very accomplished, and didn't feel a bit guilty about watching him leave.

A few moments later, Gwen frowned. Tosh had accepted the coffee with barely a 'thank you' and placed it on her desk, not even trying it. Gwen stood up to shadow Jones into the medical bay.

The suited man offered Owen the last mug. "Coffee, Doctor?"

Owen grimaced. "Beautiful. Another sample for me to analyze."

Jones looked confused. "I can assure you, Dr. Harper, there's nothing but coffee beans, hot water and milk."

"Well I'm hardly gonna take your word on it, am I? Just leave it there Teaboy, I'll get around to it." Owen waved a hand wildly in the direction of the autopsy table, and Jones carefully set the mug there. Gwen caught sight of a look of disappointment before Jones' face was fixed into a polite expression once again.

[*]

"Team, you can go. Jones, I want to see you in my office."

Ianto could hear the shout all the way from the kitchen, where he was washing the coffee mugs. Captain Harkness had taken a token sip of his, Tosh had drunk about twice that, and Gwen had drained two cups before he kindly denied her a third. She'd begged, then sighed in defeat when he admitted he'd run out of beans.

Owen's coffee had ended up in a mass spectrometer.

It did not slip past Ianto how, at a few points during the day, the captain had managed to address the other three as 'the team', pointedly leaving Ianto on the outside of that circle. It was merely another sign that this posting was going to be just as lonely as the silent London archives.

"Good night Ianto!" Gwen called, giving him a dazzling smile and she headed for the door. She leaned in closer as she passed him. "And don't worry, Jack doesn't really bite. Well," she considered, "if you ask, he'll tell you some good stories, but that's not usually anything to worry about," she grinned. "See you tomorrow!"

Ianto smiled, generally enjoying a shared joke at the boss' expense, even if he didn't quite understand it. Maybe there was to be a bright point in his cold, isolated days.

He climbed the steps into the captain's office, taking the opportunity to survey the cluttered room. The captain's desk was straight across from the doors and he gestured for Ianto to close the glass barriers behind him.

Ianto sat, mentally comparing the offices of the two heads of Torchwood branches that he'd met. Corner office on a skyscraper versus dingy basement. Somehow, the Hub seemed even more impressive to him than the business suite appearance of the Tower.

"So." Captain Harkness began abruptly. "There are some things we need to talk about."

Ianto nodded, letting the other man take the lead.

"First of all, I know why you're here."

Ianto frowned. He'd assumed Yvonne would've filled the captain in on his sister's situation, but why that was a cause for concern, he wasn't sure. "Yes sir. I requested a transfer so I-"

"Sure, yeah," Captain Harkness spoke over him. "I don't doubt that you have a bunch of great reasons for coming to Cardiff."

Stung, Ianto let a bit of his annoyance seep into his tone. "Well I am a native, sir."

"Surprisingly, I'd figured that out already." Ianto was bristling at the hostility in his new boss' tone, but, as ever, he held his cards close to his chest and didn't allow the sentiment to show through.

"You're here because Yvonne wants to have eyes and ears in Torchwood Three. And I get that, I do, I understand it," the captain held up his hand to stop Ianto's protests. "It's a game she and I play. The only reason I hired you is because one of her contacts dug up some dirt on my team. And I have quite a few friends in London who keep an eye on things for me."

Ianto let out a quiet sigh of relief. At least now he understood why everyone was so hostile toward him. He probably wouldn't take being blackmailed into accepting a colleague very kindly either. "I wasn't aware that the circumstances of my hiring were so… influenced, sir."

"Mm." From his expression, Ianto could tell the captain didn't believe him. "So I'm sure she asked you to pass her some illicit information, maybe a bit of investigation, sabotage," he listed off casually, eyes never leaving their intense study of Ianto's face. The archivist was struck by how similar the captain looked to Yvonne when she had first put him in this position.

"Nothing like that, sir," Ianto said firmly. "I would never put operative's lives in danger by sabotage, and there's nothing in my orders about investigating Torchwood Three."

"But she does want you to spy on us," Captain Harkness fired back, hands flat on his desk.

Ianto lifted his chin a hair. "I am to send a report detailing the general events of the week," he stated. "Nothing illicit whatsoever." And how was he meant to convince the captain when Yvonne had failed to convince him?

"But she does want you to keep an eye on us." Captain Harkness repeated flatly.

Ianto nodded slowly. "That… may have been implied, sir." He prayed the other man could sense his reticence, that he just wanted to fit in at Torchwood Three and care for his sister. Despite his inner pleas, he kept his face impassive. Playing the game. This right here was why he'd never gone into Management.

The captain gave him a rather lopsided, twisted grin. "I'm sure. I have just one thing to say to you, Jones." He leaned forward, partially across the desk. "If anything happens to my team because of your 'simple little report', I will erase your memories of your four years in Torchwood and convince you you're the civil servant you've been telling your family you are. And if I were less of a nice guy, you wouldn't see thirty. Do you understand me?"

The cold promise in Captain Harkness' voice assured Ianto that this was not a mere threat. His stomach clenched.

"Crystal clear, sir."

"Good." The captain sat back in his chair, ice blue eyes still daring Ianto to object. "Do you have anything to say?"

What could he say? He could tell the captain that he wanted nothing to do with his political tug-of-war, that he'd only come to Cardiff for his family, that he'd never even heard of any of Cardiff's supposed transgressions. That the archivists never talked at work, but met up at the pub and left Torchwood behind them. That Lisa had dumped him because he wasn't going to be climbing in the organization and that all he wanted from Torchwood Cardiff was a quiet place to mend his heart and get back on his feet? And if he said that, did he honestly think that captain would believe a word of it?

"No sir."

"Then you're dismissed." Captain Harkness got up and walked out of the office through the side door, leaving Ianto alone in the silence of the Hub


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning went a lot smoother for Ianto. Since he'd gotten home late, Myca and David had stayed up late, and were too tired in the morning to cause much fuss. He managed to get into work by eight.

He started off the morning with coffee for Toshiko and Captain Harkness, who were the only ones there. The he headed up to the tourist office. He'd spent most of yesterday cleaning it and the kitchen, not to mention the archives, so the room no longer had the cloying smell of dust that had been so thick the previous day.

Signing into the Torchwood Three server with his new username and password, Ianto found the few shared files that pertained to the archives. He spent an hour or so studying the way Cardiff's archives were organized, very quickly realizing just how little structure there was. Far from seeing it as a detriment, however, Ianto considered this a wonderful challenge.

"Three floors of alien artifacts, a dozen rooms full of filing cabinets and a few hundred gigabytes of randomly titled file folders, and I get to create my own archives, just the way I want them," Ianto thought. For the first time at Torchwood Three, Ianto felt like he was in heaven.

Next, he logged onto the Torchwood One server. After answering a few emails from his colleagues and the usual office messages, Ianto downloaded the forms he would have to file with the main office as part of his new posting. These included weekly summaries of his duties and the rest of the team's. Also present was a document straight from Yvonne herself, wishing him a pleasant and successful time at Torchwood Cardiff. Ianto reveled in rolling his eyes and snorting, far away from where anyone could see him.

Figuring he might as well get a head start, Ianto began to write his first weekly summary. Although it wasn't due until Friday, Ianto knew far too well how emergencies could arise at Torchwood. He also knew that personnel refused to accept 'attacked by an alien' as an excuse for incomplete paperwork.

Ianto quickly realized that he was unable to fill out the forms, seeing as he didn't know the beginning of what went on at Torchwood Three. He checked the time and saw that it was almost noon. Saving the beginnings of his report in his folder on the server, he headed down to the Hub.

Despite the fact that no one had passed through the tourist office after him that morning, Gwen and Dr. Harper had arrived and were busy working. Or, in Dr. Harper's case, playing space invaders again. Ianto noted that there must be another entrance while wondering if Owen  _ever_  did any work.

Deciding that the platform was not the place to be after Captain Harkness glared at him from his office, Ianto swerved toward Gwen's desk, right next to the cogwheel door. She was speaking on the phone, but said her goodbyes and hung up just as he reached her.

"Perfect timing Ianto, I'm just about ready to go," she said, standing up and getting her coat.

"Gwen!" Toshiko called from the platform, looking down at them above her glasses. "Jack said he was treating us to lunch today. You're not going to miss it, are you?"

"But…" Gwen looked surprised. "I told you I was eating with Ianto today."

The captain and Dr. Harper appeared at Toshiko's shoulder, coats on and looking ready to leave. "Are you coming, Gwen?"

Gwen was blatantly confused, looking between Ianto and the others with eyes as big as doorknobs and stuttering. "Well, I, um-"

Ianto took pity on her. "I do have some work I need to do Gwen, settling in," he made up on the spot. "Perhaps another time?"

Gwen shut her mouth and nodded silently, staring at the floor as she walked out through the cog door. Captain Harkness strode after her, leaving Toshiko and the doctor to file past Ianto. Toshiko didn't spare him a glance as she walked by, but Dr. Harper gave Ianto a nasty grin and announced, "Too bad there's only room for four, Teaboy," as he passed.

The door closed behind them, sirens heralding their departure. For a moment, Ianto stood next to Gwen's desk, feeling the weight of loneliness on his shoulders.

He didn't feel bad about letting Gwen leave, Ianto told himself as he watched the door they'd left by. He didn't want her to lose her friends, she was obviously almost as new as he himself.

Ianto turned around and surveyed the main Hub, taking in the various free papers covering most of the desks and much of the floor, assorted take-away containers, and the usual detritus of four people working in a small area and apparently being unable to locate the trash bins. He decided to give the area a good tidying-up.

He'd thought coming to Cardiff, working on a small team, would be less lonely than the days after days of filing artifacts and folders away in the deathly quiet London archives. But as Ianto fetched a trash bag and began loading it with empty pizza boxes, he realized he'd traded one silent hell for another.

[*]

"Gwen, you're being quiet," Jack commented once they'd reached the restaurant. It wasn't anyplace special, but a café with a menu that covered the likes and dislikes of four people with very different tastes was rarely found.

Gwen pushed her baked cod across her plate. "What was that about, back at the Hub?" she asked, looking up with a hard expression.

"I said I was going to take you guys out today," Jack reminded her. "It's not our fault you forgot and made other plans."

"I mean, the united front, the obvious exclusion," Gwen retorted. Owen and Tosh's conversation petered to a halt and they began to watch. "There aren't reservations here, we could've invited Ianto as well.

"Oh, so 'e's Ianto now, is he?" Owen's voice took on the teasing tone Gwen had identified within the first month of her employment: it was bitter and warned of stinging jabs rather than lighter jokes. She braced himself. "You already forget about your perfect beau back home, wanna shag the Teaboy?" Owen challenged.

"I want to treat him like a colleague, not a leper!" Gwen shot back angrily.

"Gwen, calm down," Jack ordered, seeing a few heads turn.

"I will not calm down!" Gwen said. Her voice rose in pitch, but she did quiet down. "I don't understand why you all refuse to even give him a chance!"

"Because the moment he finds out anything about us, he'll write it up and send it off to Hartman, and we'll never hear the end of it," Owen told her. "If London found out about the stunt you pulled with the alien gas, you'd already be retconned and back with Cardiff's finest, if you were that lucky!"

Gwen colored at the reminder of her mistake, but asked challengingly, "Do you all believe that? That Ianto would be that two-faced? Because I don't," she asserted. She looked in each of their eyes. Owen raised his eyebrows and nodded, as if to say 'obviously'. Tosh looked a bit guilty, but nodded as well. Jack answered.

"It's his job," he said. "If he doesn't, it'll be his head on the platter."

"If it's not his choice then, if he's got to do it, do we have to be so unkind?" Gwen pleaded.

Owen shook his head, returning to his fried shrimp. Tosh looked at Jack for an answer.

The captain considered. "Fine. We'll have dinner at the Hub tonight, strike up some conversation. We'll all get to know each other. Are you happy now?" He asked with just enough sincere curiosity that Gwen couldn't reply to the obvious sarcasm.

"It'll have to do," she replied.

[*]

When they returned to the Hub, Gwen intended to apologize to Ianto and explain what had happened, but when they descended into the main Hub on the invisible lift, she was too amazed to check if he was there.

"What happened here?" Owen asked, shocked. They were all staring at the Hub, which had become exponentially cleaner in their absence. No more cluttered papers, no more candy wrappers or strewn about tools, no more scattered pens. Their desks had been polished, computers and picture frames dusted and the glass windows of Jack's office looked like empty space, so cleanly they had been shined.

"I always thought they were opaque," Tosh muttered.

"Did we fall through time or something?" Gwen asked, only half-joking.

"I don't think so," Jack answered. Then he shouted. "Jones!"

There was a small clatter from the medical bay, then the neatly suited body of their new colleague appeared on the stairs. "Sorry sir, I didn't hear you come in," he explained. "Do you need something?"

"Did you do this?" Jack questioned, gesturing toward the clean desks.

Ianto nodded. "I thought it could use a bit of a touch-up," he explained. A worried expression came over his pale face. "I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds."

There was a momentary silence wherein the team stared at Ianto in surprise and Ianto stared back in confusion. Then Owen broke it with a yelp.

"Hey, what were you doing in my medical bay?" he shouted, taking the stairs down two at a time. Ianto followed.

"There were some unidentifiable stains on the floor and autopsy table, I was taking a stab at them. I hadn't gotten around to cleaning your desk yet," he said apologetically.

Gwen raised her eyebrows. "I bet I could see my reflection in that," she wondered, admiring the shining metal autopsy table.

Ianto shrugged. "It's not as good as it would be if I had some proper cleaning supplies, but there wasn't much in the Hub. If you have a petty cash fund, sir, I could appropriate some proper detergents?" he asked Jack respectfully.

"Is there a form for that?"

Gwen was prepared to take the mickey out of Jack for his sarcasm, but Ianto replied before she could say anything. "Of course, sir. Appendix B, subcategory general supplies in the appropriations for employee use section of the common-use forms registry. There are actually three forms, but you only have to sign one, sir."

Gwen smirked, and Jack appeared at a loss for words. "O-kay then, Jones, get right on that."

Ianto nodded, then said a quiet goodbye to Gwen as he passed her on the way to the cog door. The remaining four stood in stupefaction until it had closed behind him.  
  
Owen scratched his head. "Are we sure he's human?"


	5. Chapter 5

When Ianto returned to the tourist office, a little smugly, he would admit, he downloaded the forms for the Hub's petty cash fund. Having begun to get a feel for the way things were handled in Cardiff, Ianto was guessing that whatever fund they had operated on a take-what-you-need basis, and he'd be very surprised if they kept records of the transactions.  
  
While he was beginning to fill out the forms, he heard a clanging noise and the sound of something heavy falling from the outer wall. Frowning suspiciously, he opened the front door of the office.

"May I help you?" he asked politely to the young woman who had begun to walk away from the Hub. She turned around, and Ianto realized she was wearing the combat green uniform and black cap of a UNIT courier that he recognized from Torchwood London. She had fair skin with a few dark freckles and pretty gray eyes. Ianto guessed she was even younger than his own twenty-four years, and she was several inches shorter than his own 5'11".

The courier looked down and took in his suit, then looked back at his face unsurely. "I just dropped off some mail, that's all," she told him. Ianto nearly smiled at her strong Northern accent that reminded him of a friend at Torchwood One.

"I'll just take a look at it then, shall I?" He stepped back into the building, making sure the woman didn't see his smirk when she ducked in after him.

"Wait!" she cried. "It's not for the tourist office." She grabbed his arm. "It's classified," she told him seriously.

Ianto chuckled, walking behind the service counter. He reached under it for his badge and saw the messenger's arm flinch toward her waist. "I'm not armed," he promised, slowly drawing his wallet from the counter. He held it forward and let it drop open so his Torchwood credentials were showing.

The courier inspected the ID and then let out a sigh, her shoulders relaxing. "Sorry," she said with an embarrassed smile. "I'm new on the job. I guess all those safety and security lectures got me a bit spooked."

Ianto shook his head, "I was the same way. Torchwood London before I was here," and smiled at her surprise.

"They're even worse than us, I heard!" She grinned, sticking out her hand. "Connie, Connie March. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Ianto shook her hand. "Ianto Jones." He checked his watch and saw that it was around three. "You have time for a cuppa?" he inquired. "If you've no more deliveries, that is. I've just made a fresh pot." He indicated the batch he'd been planning to bring down to the team.

Connie smiled. "I guess I have time."

Ianto took two mugs from the back room and poured their cups. When he turned back, he stopped. Connie had taken off her uniform jacket and cap, letting shoulder length blonde hair spill out and curl slightly around her heart-shaped face. When she saw his surprise, the young woman laughed.

"Well if a handsome bloke's gonna serve me coffee, I'd better be off duty, eh?" She tilted her head and gave him a flirtatious look.

"Good thing, too," Ianto replied, slipping easily out of his working persona of calm efficiency. "Wouldn't want anyone to think we were fraternizin' on the job." He handed her the mug, their fingers brushing. Connie's eyes met his daringly as she raised it to her lips.

Then she gasped, mid-sip, and started coughing.

"Are you all right?" Ianto asked immediately, coming around the counter and steadying her as she leaned against the counter, even taking the mug out of her hand and setting it safely on the flat surface. "Connie, can you try to speak for me?"

"That-" she spluttered, then coughed and started again, "That was bloody brilliant!" She looked up at him, laughter dancing in her eyes even as she had to clear her throat again. "Who are you?"

Ianto let out a real, full laugh for what felt like the first time since he'd heard his sister's news, and he was surprised by how much lighter it made him feel. "I'm just Cardiff's own Ianto Jones, I'm afraid," he admitted. "And I've never seen someone react to my coffee quite that way."

Connie blushed and looked down. Then she cursed. "I got coffee on my blouse!"

Ianto looked down, realized the view the angle of his height afforded him, and looked away, grabbing a tissue from the counter and holding it out.

Connie smiled at him that particular way again as she took it. "What would I do without you, Ianto Jones?"

"You wouldn't be paying to have that stain removed, I suppose."

Of course, it was just when she was laughing beautifully and touching his shoulder, standing just a hair too close to be proper, that Ianto heard the door to the Hub engaging. He stepped back just in time to regain professional distance when Captain Harkness walked in.

The man's intelligent eyes landed on Connie and he stepped forward. "Well hello beautiful! I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and it is wonderful to meet you." He moved close and kissed her hand instead of shaking it.

Ianto had retreated behind the counter and had the perfect view of the captain's coy expression. Those deep blue orbs seemed to glow as they focused completely on the being in front of him. Ianto shifted his weight, feeling awkward, but unable to look away as the captain held Connie's hand to his lips far too long. For some reason, that gaze made him blush, like even being it the room with it was too much.

"Ensign March, sir. It's an honor." If Ianto hadn't been monitoring his facial expressions his eyebrows would've jumped off his forehead. Far from the playful tone she'd taken with him, the young woman sounded painfully formal, almost cold.

Captain Harkness, though obviously not being aware of the contrast, definitely seemed to get the impression that his advances were not welcome. He took a subtle step back and turned his attention to Ianto. "Have you got that paper ready Jones?" he asked.

Ianto stiffened against the return of the exponentially less friendly tone than the captain had used with Connie. For a bare instant, he wished that he could be the recipient of such a kind overture. Then, blinking, he answered. "Almost, sir. It'll be on your desk by the time you get back. When do you expect that'll be, sir?"

"You should get started on the archives," the captain ordered, "they're not going to wait forever." He looked at Connie, but she had turned her back on him, so he exited through the front door.

The moment it slammed shut behind him, Connie let out a long sound of frustration. "Smarmy git," she muttered. "Blokes like that  _so_  rub me the wrong way!"

Ianto dredged up a wry grin. "I'm sure if you asked nicely," he winked. Connie was startled into laughter, which broke the odd tension.

"It's far too soon into our acquaintance for you to be makin' jokes like that,  _Jones_ ," she grinned. "He doesn't seem to like you," she commented offhand.

Ianto shrugged. "I'm new here in Cardiff. I expect it'll take him some time to warm up to me." If he ever does, he finished in his head. "And you didn't seem to like him very much either."

Connie rolled her eyes. "Like I said, I hate wankers like that, that think that just 'cause they've got looks, a girl'll swoon into their arms. I had enough of that in University, and there's even more of 'em in UNIT."

Ianto had to squash the urge to defend the captain, even though he had no idea if Connie was right. But it was rooted deep inside of Ianto to protect his own, even if his Captain Harkness was only related to him by the loosest of definitions.

"Anyway, he's not my type," Connie finished, blind to the confusion inside Ianto's mind. "You, on the other hand," she added, jumping from brooding to playful in an instant. "You wanna go out for somethin' next time I'm in town? I promise not to spill anythin' on you."

"I'd be delighted," he answered, watching Connie's gray eyes sparkled as she smiled.

After she left, he made a new pot of coffee and brought it down to the Hub along with the petty cash form. After leaving that on Jack's desk, he served Dr. Harper and Toshiko, who didn't seem to notice, and then Gwen, who gave him a blinding smile. "I'm so sorry about earlier. I talked to them and-"

"There's nothing to worry about Gwen, nothing at all," Ianto assured her. "If you still want that talk?" He held up the remaining mug of coffee.

Gwen nodded, taking hers and nursing it as they walked to the boardroom.

"So, tell me about Torchwood London!" Gwen began excitedly. "Why did you decide to transfer to Cardiff?"

Ianto remembered Captain Harkness' words the previous night and wondered if Gwen, at least, might believe that he hadn't been sent as a spy. "One is very different," he started. "For one thing, it looks like a normal office building from the outside, none of this under-the-water-tower sneaking around that we have in Cardiff. I worked in the basement, in the archives. The main archives are dozens upon dozens of rooms, all filled with filing cabinets. Very boring to look at, actually, but the information inside them is amazing if you take a look. I liked to read random files in my spare time. Then there's the artifact archive, where all the alien tech are stored. What's not being used is stored in a gigantic subbasement that looks like the back of a department store. You need huge ladders to reach things. What they're actively studying is kept in this big warehouse-like room that takes up the fourth and fifth story. The entire thing is… absolutely incredible," he sighed. "I wanted to see everything, all of it, study it all."

Gwen looked entranced. "Then why did you leave?"

Ianto's eyes lost their faraway gleam. "My sister, she developed breast cancer. I had to move back to Cardiff to help care for her and her family. She has two kids," he explained, "and she can't work for a while, so money's stretched a bit thin."

"My God, I'm so sorry Ianto." Gwen looked devastated. She reached out to grab his hand. Ianto was surprised by the gesture, but put his other hand over hers.

"It's a bit odd," he admitted. "She was always the strong one, she took care of me. Even now, in her sickbed, she's always trying to get me to talk to her, tell her how I feel. Cry on her shoulder," he snorted.

"Why's that?" his colleague asked sympathetically.

Ianto looked away. "When I left London, I had to leave behind my girlfriend, Lisa. Well, no, that's not entirely true," he confessed. "It was a long time coming. Lisa was a climber, she wanted me to become a manager, go for promotions, all that. I was happy where I was, in the basement." He shrugged. "She broke up with me, said she didn't want to date someone who was going nowhere."

"That's her loss, Ianto," Gwen said fiercely. Her hand tightened over his until he met her eyes. "It's not your fault."

Ianto blinked, clearing the shimmer that had snuck over them. "I know. And I knew it was coming, we hadn't been well for a while, but… I really had thought I could love her, that we might, y'know…" he blushed. "We might end up married or something."

"You'll find someone else," Gwen soothed. "I know it doesn't seem likely, here in Cardiff," she joked, "but it'll happen."

Ianto gave her a shaky smile. "Thanks, Gwen. You know, you're a bit easy to talk to," he said, surprised at himself for telling so much. "Maybe too easy. I've been going on for a while; tell me how you met this boyfriend of yours," he suggested, eager to steer on to happier subjects.

Gwen immediately perked up. An hour later, Ianto had not only learned all about Gwen's boyfriend Rhys, but also about his parents, including his nightmare of a mother, his business and what she wanted their wedding to be like. He'd also managed to turn the subject to work and, after asking a few leading questions, felt much more confident about what exactly the team did and his ability to fill out the required forms.

He was just finishing his second coffee refill when his mobile rang. Seeing that it was his sister, Ianto excused himself to take it.

"What is it Rhi?... Mica?... Where's Johnny?... No, it's no trouble, none at all… No, I'll be there as soon as I can… Sure… I love you too Rhi," he hung up.

"Is there a problem?" Gwen asked, having obviously heard the conversation.

"My niece is sick, and they can't reach her father at work. I have to pick up some medicine and drop off her brother at football practice. Do you think Captain Harkness will mind if I leave early?" Ianto asked nervously.

Gwen hesitated, which nearly sent Ianto's blood pressure skyrocketing, but then she shook her head. "I'll straighten it out with him. You go take care of you family, pet."

"Thank you so much, Gwen," Ianto called on his way out the door. "I really owe you one for this!


	6. Chapter 6

Jack took the invisible lift so he wouldn't have to pass Jones.

He knew it wouldn't do him much good, since the man was probably in the conference room already, digging into some Chinese with the team, but he didn't want to take the chance. Just the sight of Jones would get Jack's blood boiling, and he was afraid of what he would say if he had to be alone with the man again.

After all the atrocities he'd seen Torchwood London commit, Jack had vowed that his own team, his own realm here in Cardiff would be a safe haven to aliens, untouched by One's barbaric policies. He was determined that his team would be trained by him only, to respect alien life and to strive for peaceful contact with them. Even Tosh's previous employment at the Ministry of Defense had been a mark against her in his book until he determined it would be easy to convince her to see things his way.

Accepting Jones into Torchwood Three was like giving up. It meant that Jack was condoning everything London had done, letting their bloodstained hands reach deep into his home and taint it. As far as Jack was concerned, Ianto Jones was contaminated, and, worse than that, contagious.

Meeting the man himself had done nothing to disabuse him of the idea. Jones was polite, well-dressed, obedient: he was exactly like all the other Torchwood London lackeys and nothing like the people Jack normally picked for his team. It wasn't even the paperwork Jack objected to, it was the way bureaucrats always used this paper trail or that documentation to pass the buck, to claim immunity from responsibility. The way Jones had acted last night, like he knew nothing about the subterfuge, only served to make Jack angrier.

If Jones had seemed like he enjoyed it, the back-and-forth of the con game, Jack would have respected him. He'd read over the man's profile and could see why Yvonne had chosen him for the assignment: Jones was affable, had an exemplary record, he was bright, and he had fit in well wherever he happened to be, even when he was seconded right in the middle of a dispute between two competing research teams. Both group leaders had commented that Jones' presence had calmed their teams and allowed the project to finish successfully. Jack admitted that he probably would've picked Jones for an infiltration job like this one.

But last night in his office, Jones had had the nerve to pretend that he didn't want to be a mole, that his intentions were pure. Jack curled his lip at the thought. Jones was intelligent enough to see the way things were playing out around him. If he still refused to believe why he'd been sent to Cardiff, if he was honestly still trying to play the innocent card, then he was allowing himself to be a pawn, and Jack had even less respect for him than ever.

Jack stopped by his office and hung his coat. He opened the safe to hide away the bundle of first aid supplies the landing party had brought him. Jack made it a point to monitor incoming extraterrestrials and, when he could, request a few off-world items. The visitors were normally happy to trade these essentials for some Earth curiosities or galactic credits. Luckily Jack had been economical with his money since he'd landed here and his Vortex Manipulator was able to access several of his old accounts across the galaxy.

When he closed the safe and went to sit down, he saw the form Jones had asked him to sign placed exactly in the center of his desk. Scowling at the reminder, he checked his gun and placed it in his desk drawer before stomping up to the conference room.

Jack was surprised, but not at all unhappy, to find only his team eating fish and chips around the big table, the latest comedy playing out on one of the big screens.

"I thought we were making nice with Jones," he threw at Gwen as he took his seat at the head of the table, snagging the vinegar as he passed.

Gwen frowned at him. "He had a family emergency."

Jack swallowed a gulp of soda. "Sure," he said, eyebrows raised disbelievingly. He nearly laughed out loud as Gwen's jaw clenched and she stabbed her fish violently.

A few minutes later Gwen blurted out, "I think we should take him into the field."

"Will you shut up already?" Owen moaned, pausing the movie. "We get it, you're Miss bloody Bleeding Heart, but don't get in the way of comedy night, all right?"

Jack ignored him. "He's support; he's not going in the field."

"You told me when I joined that everyone in Torchwood pulled their own weight. That we all have to be able to support each other!" She looked imploringly at Tosh and Owen as well. "I talked to Ianto, he wants to learn about what we do here!"

"So he can write it up and send it back to his lady mistress in London. God, get it through your skull, Gwen."

"He should at least go on a Weevil hunt. If he's to be support, he'll have to feed them when we bring them to the Hub, he should see what they're like before they're sedated," she justified.

"Fine," Jack agreed. The weevils had honestly slipped his mind, but he definitely though Gwen was right. However much he didn't want the man on his team, he didn't want him to get hurt feeding the Weevils because he didn't know how dangerous they were.

Gwen looked startled at the easy acquiescence. "F-fine," she said.

Owen looked back and forth between them. "Are you both done?" The pressed play and threw himself back into the chair, cradling his beer.

[*]

The next morning Ianto was at the computer in the tourist office, beginning to write out his plans for the structure of the archives, when the front door was flung open and Captain Harkness strode in, already speaking.

"You're going to need firsthand experience dealing with Weevils. We're going to tag one this morning. The captain slammed the Hub door button with the palm of his hand. "Coming?" he asked as Ianto stared at him in surprise.

"Um, yes sir." Ianto quickly saved his document and caught up with the captain at the lift.

Again, he was in for a highly uncomfortable car ride. The captain's coat brushed his elbow, but Ianto felt it would be too obvious to move away. He wished there was something he could say, if only to distract himself from the curious sensation of the thick wool making friction with his suit jacket.

The doors opened and, with a quiet sigh of relief, Ianto followed the captain's long strides to the armory. Ms. Sato was already there, checking a handgun and sliding it into a hip holster. Captain Harkness indicated a box of spray cans and waved Ianto to take one. "You don't get a real gun," the captain said, "but try this."

He tossed an object at Ianto, who thanked his reflexes for the thing not colliding with his face. When he inspected it, he realized it was a rather easy-to-use stun gun. "Sir?" he asked a bit uncertainly.

The captain nodded impatiently. "Point and click. Spikes at the front make direct contact with the skin. Do not touch them yourself!" he stressed.

"Yes, sir."

The ride in the Range Rover was silent. Ianto had no idea where they were going, thought he had discovered both the invisible lift and the garage nearby where the Range Rover was kept. Ianto tried to glean some information from the screens in the vehicle, but Ms. Sato's was angled wrong and the others were either too confusing or held nothing useful.

"Here," Captain Harkness announced, bringing them to a screeching halt outside Bute Park. Ianto jumped out after the others, scrambling to keep up as they immediately ran off into woods.

"Another twenty meters," Ms. Sato called, slowing down. Ianto was glad he hadn't let his fitness slide like some of the other archivists; otherwise he'd be rather tired at this point. As it was, he was only a bit behind the captain and Ms. Sato.

"Stay back, Jones, just watch how we handle it," Captain Harkness ordered.

Ianto dropped back, watching as the other two spread out to flank the Weevil. It was in a small clearing that formed a dip in the forest floor. It appeared to be eating something, a small woodland animal. Ianto wrinkled his nose at the smell of the creature, thick and disgusting even from several meters away.

At some signal Ianto couldn't hear, Jack ran forward at the beast, spraying at its face. The Weevil reared at him, but the spray caught its eyes and it clutched them, whining. Ms. Sato stabbed it in the neck with a syringe from behind, and its struggles slowed. The whole event was over in seconds, quick and clean. Ianto let out a breath he'd been unconsciously holding.

Just then, a movement behind Ms. Sato caught his eye. Ianto was frozen for a bare instant, then he rushed forward. "Watch out!"

His shout alerted Ms. Sato, who spun around in time to catch the down swipe of the second Weevil's arm in her hand. Ianto was already upon them, spraying wildly. The spray only seemed to make it angrier, thought, and Ms. Sato cried out as one of its talons cut her arm.

Ianto did the only thing he could do. His forward momentum was bringing him down the slope too fast: if he tried to slow down to act with more finesse, the weevil would have time to overpower the smaller woman. He launched himself at the alien, taking it down in a practiced rugby tackle.

He could hear the captain and Ms. Sato shouting at him, but Ianto couldn't see anything beyond the snapping jaws and bloody  _gigantic_  teeth of the alien beneath him as it struggled. Its flailing limbs smashed into his body with the uncontrolled strength of a wild animal in pain. He was using all of his strength to pin its arms down and hold his neck away from the Weevil's jaw when its fighting began to get more sluggish. Ianto found himself dragged off the weakening alien.

"What the hell was that?" Ianto was forced to spin around, forced to tear his eyes away from the Weevil that was still squirming slightly on the ground.

Captain Harkness shook him by the shoulders. "What were you thinking?" he shouted inches from Ianto's face. "You are not a field agent, you've had no training!"

Ianto summoned the last of his adrenaline rush to shove the captain off of him. "Ms. Sato?" he called, voice hoarse. He realized that he'd probably been shouting as he fought the Weevil, but he couldn't remember it. "Are you all right?" he croaked.

Ms. Sato was holding her arm tightly where the Weevil had cut it, but she was kneeling by the alien and removing a second syringe from where she'd stuck it while Ianto was pinning it down. She gave him a tight smile. "I've had worse."

Ianto nodded and took a deep breath. Out of the blue, he was struck with what had just happened. He tackled, he'd bloody _r_ _ugby tackled an alien_. He started to breathe faster and his eyes wouldn't focus.

"Jones? Jones, look at me." Suddenly there was a face in front of his, hands on his jaw keeping him in place, a voice that was utterly in control surrounding him. "Breathe slowly through your nose, in, and out, in and out. Good, slowly. It's over."

Ianto gritted his teeth as he tried to keep control of his breathing, but a few shudders worked their way through and he lost the rhythm of breaths. One of Captain Harkness' hands left his face and curled around his shoulder instead, drawing him into a tight embrace. Ianto could feel the other man's chest moving at a slow, controlled pace and tried to copy it. He breathed deep, taking in the smell of the captain's thick coat as well as something fresh and sweet and utterly enticing. He focused on that, letting the unknown fragrance dance through his nose, and he felt himself calming down.

Captain Harkness let him go, looking at his face carefully to make sure he was all right. Ianto wiped away a few stray tears. "You good to go?"

"Yes sir," Ianto said firmly. He followed the captain to the body of the weevil, where his hands shook only slightly as they began to carry it back to the Range Rover.


	7. Chapter 7

"It was completely irresponsible." Jack shook his head disapprovingly.

"It was bloody stupid. He coulda been mauled," Owen commented. His hands moved gently and carefully on Tosh's arm wound, in direct contrast to the heat of his voice.

"Well I think it was heroic," Gwen disagreed. "What do you think, Tosh?"

The tech expert squirmed in her seat on the autopsy table under the sudden weight of three angry gazes upon her. "Well… I'm obviously very grateful," she said quietly.

"This doesn't change anything, Gwen, we still can't trust him," Jack told her, leaning forward on the chains that lined the autopsy bay. He sounded tired, like he'd said the words dozens of times before. Actually, Gwen considered, that might not be too far off.

"No. The only thing that's changed is that now, the man you won't even share a meal with has saved your friend's life. Is that really worth so little to you, Jack?"

"Do not twist my words!" Jack said angrily. "I am damn glad he was there to protect Tosh. That doesn't change his job description."

"I can't believe you people!" Gwen shouted. "Why can't you find some common decency?"

Jack's face was coloring, and his fists clenched the chain railing. "I'm doing the right thing for my team. I don't have to explain myself to you!"

Gwen stormed up the steps from the medical bay until she was standing nose to nose with Jack. "I think you're just jealous because today Ianto was the hero, not you!"

"And I think you just want to mother him because he looks so damn cute and gives you puppy-dog eyes," Jack sneered. "He's manipulating you, Gwen. And you're letting yourself fall for it."

It was at that moment that the entryway sirens blared out their welcome. The cog wheel door rolled open and Ianto walked through it, nose buried in a folder. He casually made his way up to the platform before looking up.

Gwen and Jack were standing in the exact same places, staring at him. Ianto looked at each of them, eyes wide, then down at Owen and Tosh, who were watching in silence.

"Am I interrupting something?"

[*]

Ianto had mostly calmed down from the Weevil hunt, but the adrenaline jitters hadn't quite worn off yet, so he made himself an herbal tea instead of a coffee. It didn't substitute, not in the slightest, but he knew caffeine wouldn't help at the moment and the only other thing in the Hub was Dr. Harper's fruit punch. God knew why the man had such a childish drink, but Ianto had guessed it was far past its sell by date in any case.

He typed up his report on the Weevil hunt, fingers flying over the keys. He had to read it over twice to make sure he'd gotten all the facts straight and that everything was completely impartial. He made a checklist of the requirements for a field report, seeing as he'd never had to fill one out himself before, and saved it in his server folder.

After that, he did a smaller summary of the event for his weekly report to Yvonne, emphasizing the smooth way Captain Harkness and Ms. Sato had worked in consortium to catch the Weevil and how they'd been quick in overcoming their surprise to apprehend the second. He tried to minimize his own part in the capture, since, as the captain had pointed out, it had been an incredibly stupid thing to do and Ms. Sato had been responsible for the sedation anyway. Not to mention if word ever got to his friends in the archives that he'd gone hand-to-hand with an alien he'd never hear the end of it.

Ianto put his head down on his desk. It was Wednesday evening. He had started work here on Monday. They had been the most stressful, lonely days of his life.

After wasting a few minutes pitying himself, Ianto reopened the contents of his report to Yvonne and looked over the list of things she wanted every week. He realized that an individual report on all field incidents was expected from Captain Harkness each week, which he was sure had not been a requirement on the branch leader before Ianto had been hired. He printed out the entire folder of the expected weekly report, feeling better with hard copies than Word documents.

After going through the file, Ianto realized there were a few things he ought to discuss with the captain. He opened the door to the Hub and took the elevator, still reading the file to ensure he remembered all the things he wanted to bring up. Caught up in reading a particular paragraph, Ianto walked onto the platform, heading for Captain Harkness' office, before he realized that the Hub was unnaturally silent.

Looking up from his papers, Ianto immediately noted how close the captain and Gwen were standing, their flushed faces, and the Ms. Sato's nervous look as she watched from the autopsy table. Dr. Harper seemed to be attempting to conceal laughter.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"What do you need?" Captain Harkness asked bluntly.

Ianto decided to let it go. He obviously wasn't going to get a straight answer in public. Maybe Gwen would explain it to him later. "A few things I wanted to go over with you, sir?"

Captain Harkness took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I'll be with you in a sec," he said, motioning toward his office, but his eyes were locked on Gwen's as if daring her to protest. The Welshwoman stared right back, eyes similarly fiery.

Ianto went into the captain's office, not missing the sudden flurry of whispers as soon as he was out of direct hearing range, and wondered if he'd been imagining the sexual tension between Gwen and Captain Harkness.

It was a minute or two later when the captain stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. Then he sat in his chair on the other side of the desk, sitting up straight. "What is it Jones?"

The command in the American's voice made Ianto's own spine stiffen automatically. "There are a few things I need from you, sir, for the report."

The captain stiffened. "Such as?"

Ianto got the impression he was treading very thin ice. He kept his voice level as if he were trying not to spook an animal. "An individual report on each weekly field incident is the main concern right now, but there's also the monthly budget report, and…" He tried to think of how to put the last demand, knowing the captain would not take it well. "It has been… suggested, that you perform employee evaluations at least every three months."

As he had expected, Captain Harkness' eyes became hard enough to cut diamond. "Is that so."

Ianto cursed internally, not sure how he could keep himself out of trouble. He already was aware of how protective the captain was of his team, and he hoped he wouldn't have to be in the vicinity when the inevitable call to the head of Torchwood One took place.

"Yes sir," he said after a second's quick thought. "But that's not the pressing concern. We're expected to submit the entire report by Friday evening, and you're meant to provide these reports." He placed the printout of Yvonne's requirements for the captain's and sat back.

Captain Harkness eyes the paper angrily. "Are you telling me how to do my job, Jones?"

"Not at all, sir. I'm only telling you what has been requested of me that I provide for London. I had no intention of criticizing you, sir."

He held back his gulp, but only just. The pent-up fury emanating from the captain as he scanned the list Ianto had provided for him was making him feel quite warm. Ianto wondered if the man was actually radiating heat.

"Thank you for informing me, Jones," the captain said, his voice painfully formal. Ianto thought it sounded like something inside him was about to crack, and he was very relieved to take the statement as a dismissal. He rose to leave.

"Jones." He stopped, then turned back, half-fearing that the captain had changed his mind and was about to strangle him.

Instead, Captain Harkness was looking at him calmly, the strain of moments before seemingly vanished. Ianto marveled at the way the other man could jump between emotions.

"Yes sir?"

"I want to thank you for what you did for Toshiko," the captain said. His voice was startlingly sincere. Ianto's attention caught on his eyes, which were softer than Ianto had ever seen directed at him. For some unknown reason, he was mesmerized.

"It was incredibly brave of you, and not something just anyone would do for a stranger."

"She's not a stranger, sir," Ianto corrected, then felt himself starting to blush. "She's Torchwood as much as me."

The captain's jaw pulsed, but he nodded. "Good night, Jones. You can head out early."

"Thank you sir," Ianto replied. He closed the office door behind him and was rather grateful that the Hub appeared empty when he walked through it.

He logged onto his server again upstairs. It wasn't that late, so he downloaded his plans for the archives and determined to work on them for a while once he returned to his new flat. Maybe tonight he'd get around to unpacking some of the boxes from London.

[*]

Jack leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. This Jones was giving him no end of trouble. Why couldn't he just be heartless, or an idiot or something? Then Jack could hate him or disregard him in a simple, uncomplicated way. Instead, he saved Toshiko's life and then cited it as doing his duty.

For some reason, that rankled at Jack, raised his hackles. Maybe it was just because it was Tosh who had been hurt, who'd almost been killed, and he was hampered by the first Weevil and couldn't help her. What could have happened if Jones hadn't been there? Or maybe it was because Jones had grouped them together in the same category, Torchwood, and Jack hadn't realized that he might think that way.

For Jack, the distinction between Torchwood London and Torchwood Cardiff was  _very_  clear. Cardiff was here, London was there. London did things that way, Cardiff most certainly did  _not_. For Jones to say he felt camaraderie because he and Tosh were both parts of the same organization, that was what lit a fire under the captain: that Jones considered them comrades, on the same level. Equals.

But then, Jack remembered the man's reaction after the Weevils. He was obviously in shock; Jack knew he'd never been in the field before. Though Jack had been shouting at him only moments before, he knew that his anger was mainly caused by fear for both Toshiko and his new employee. His new charge. Jack realized that even if he despised his new recruit, it was his job to keep the man safe.

He was surprised by how easy it was to pull Jones into his arms. He'd expected it to be awkward, as if his feelings for the man would coat his skin and make touching uncomfortable. But he hadn't been able to be angry at Jones for existing when his blue-gray eyes were so wide with fear. Jack was able to set his feelings aside for a few minutes and bring him down from the shock, treat him like he would any member of his team.

Why couldn't he simply be a bastard? Someone who it was easy to dislike? Why did he force Jack to be grateful to him, stir the immortal's strong protective instincts, then make Jack hate him with such passion?

Jack got up from his desk and shrugged on his coat. He was going out. He needed something to get rid of all this anger, and tonight, a roof just wasn't going to cut it.


	8. Chapter 8

When Ianto arrived the next morning, he was quite surprised to find the whole team already in. After the past two days, Ianto had just assumed that Gwen and Dr. Harper had shifts that began later than the captain and Ms. Sato.

He used the coffee machine in the Hub to create one of his favorite blends, one that the archivists back in London had particularly loved in the mornings. He made five cups and handed them out.

Captain Harkness didn't look up as he placed the mug on his desk, for which Ianto was mildly grateful. Dr. Harper was next, and he took the coffee straight from Ianto's hands and immediately began to drink it without a word of thanks. Ianto squashed a hint of annoyance. When he went to silently place Ms. Sato's mug on her desk, though, her small hands interrupted the movement, holding around his fingers on the mug.

For what may have been the first time since he'd arrived in Cardiff, the Japanese woman was looking directly at his face.

"I wanted to say thank you," she told him. She spoke so quietly that he had to lean forward to hear her. "For yesterday," she clarified.

"You're welcome, Ms. Sato," Ianto replied politely, and tried to move away.

Her hands still held his to the mug. "And… you can call me Toshiko," she murmured. Ianto peered at her curiously. When he caught her nervous glance behind him, in the direction of Captain Harkness' and Dr. Harper's desks, he nodded and gave her a small smile. An even smaller one was offered in return.

Ianto continued to Gwen's desk, feeling a real, happy smile come over his face. Gwen said "Thank you Ianto" when he gave her the second-to-last mug, and he almost moved into the rest of his day in a good mood.

Then he remembered. "Gwen, what was that all about last night? It seemed rather tense."

His good mood faded as Gwen glared at her desk. "It's nothing you need to worry about, Ianto. Just Jack being Jack."

Sensing that continued inquiry would not be welcome, Ianto headed off to the tourist office with his coffee. He spent the morning finishing up what he had for his report to London and continuing his plans for the archives.

The main question was what sort of organizational plan he would use. Most people tended to go in alphabetical order, since it was what everyone learned since birth. However, Ianto knew this wouldn't work after working in the London archives. There were already a multitude of different alphabets in place on Earth alone, and there were hundreds more that they knew of from other planets. If they tried to organize them in English, or any other Earth language, the whole system would fall apart.

Next to consider was organization by date, chronological. In a place like Torchwood Three, this would mean items would be placed by when they came into the organization's hands. That was what Ianto was most comfortable with, since it was straightforward and wouldn't be confused by off-worlder's methods of dating as they might be if he logged things according to what time they  _came_  from.

However, there were more problems even if he used chronological order. What if two items came through the Rift in quick succession that could not be stored together? Or what if one of those pieces was part of a set that had appeared earlier?

In the end, what Ianto chose was something similar to the Dewey Decimal Classification. Except for aliens, he thought with a snigger. The multitude of artifacts would be broken up into groups depending on their use, whether that was personal hygiene, communications, clothing, cooking, music, children's toys, monetary, household furniture or any other sort of item. There would be areas with somewhat higher security for sensitive items like medical tools, complicated electronics or items that could be dangerous if the user didn't know what they were doing. There would also be rooms for larger items or things that needed to be stored separately, like if they emitted radiation or had magnetic fields which might affect other items.

Inside these categories, Ianto planned to organize everything chronologically, and what would seem to be a confusing classification system if you walked right into the storage areas would be easy to understand and access when it was backed up by a computer index. That index he planned to have fully cross-referenced with mission reports, medical reports, linked to the employee who found the item and studied it and connected to other artifacts which were identified to be of the same race or time period.

Ianto cracked his fingers. For one archivist, alone, to take on the entire hundred and thirty years of Torchwood Three's backed-up jumble of artifacts and miscellaneous alien flotsam and jetsam? That was insane. Ianto couldn't wait.

[*]

Thursday passed quickly. Ianto served another round of coffee around lunch and took the opportunity to ask Gwen what sort of things the team liked for lunch. She pointed him to a drawer full of take-away menus with everyone's preference circled, and Ianto called in an order of Thai. Gwen asked if he wanted to eat with them, but, mind racing over his project, Ianto barely heard her. He took the order down to the conference room when it arrived and returned to his work.

Before he realized it, the light streaming in through the windows of the tourist office were flickering and fluorescent. He only recognized that it was nighttime when he sat back from the desktop to rub his temples, aching from multiple hours of exposure to the computer screen.

"Have you even looked up from that monitor since lunch?"

Ianto jerked in his seat and had to blink several times before his eyes would focus on the broad figure of Captain Harkness in the door to the Hub. The captain was resting against the doorframe comfortably, as thought he'd been there for a while, and Ianto was thrown off to see that his smile was gentle and teasing rather than malicious.

"I, I don't believe so, sir." He looked at his watch and was startled to see that it was gone seven. "I didn't order dinner!" Ianto stood up from his chair with a clatter, already reaching for the phone. "I'm so sorry, sir. What would you like?"

Captain Harkness waved his hand. "They've all gone home. It's been quiet the past few days; I let them go a few hours ago. Was about to lock down the Hub when I saw there was someone else here. What are you working on?" he asked, walking behind Ianto at the desk.

"Plans for the archives, sir. I've determined a classification system that I hope will be both manageable to use and easy to access quickly. I've been trying to set up a framework for the digital archives, but coding like this really needs an expert," he explained, rubbing his hands over his forehead tiredly. Seeing the captain's drawn brows as he read the screen, Ianto clicked to the enumerated list he was trying to translate into code to convert the current system of digital reports to his method. "This is what I want the system to look like when it's done, but I'm really not good enough with computers."

The captain drew back. "I'm impressed, Jones. This system does look better than what we have now. Show your plans to Toshiko tomorrow and she can work on the code. If I know her, she'll have it done before you know what you want to do next," he grinned.

Ianto was feeling very off-balance from the captain's good mood, but he decided to take advantage of it. "If I could request plans for the archive floors of the Hub, sir?" When the captain looked at him, Ianto hastened to explain. "I want people to be able to find what they need quickly in the archives as well as on the server, and, respectfully put, sir, the current method seems to be 'stick it where there's room.'"

Captain Harkness gave a genuine smile at that. "I'll get them to you by tomorrow. Now go home, Jones," he ordered.

Captain Harkness turned off the monitor and took Ianto's elbow to steer him toward the door. When both of them walked between the counter and the wall at the same time, they were pressed so close their bodies were almost touching and Ianto didn't breathe until they were standing apart in the middle of the office again. The captain let go of his elbow, cold air rushing in to cover the area beneath his warm hand.

"Very well, sir." He nearly said 'I'll see you in the morning,' but, the captain's current good mood aside, that seemed much too familiar for them. Plus, he was having trouble forming words at the moment, feeling all-too-aware that it was just him and Captain Harkness in the small room. He left as quickly as he could without rushing, and made it all the way to his car in the garage before realizing he'd left his coat.

[*]

Jack chuckled, watching the flustered Mr. Jones leave the tourist office in only a suit shirt and a tie. For all he knew, Jones was straight, and Jack's gaydar was usually pretty accurate, but it was definitely entertaining to see how uncomfortable he was in Jack's presence.

The immortal returned downstairs, going to reread the email that had put him in such a good mood. One of the patients at Flat Holm had made a full recovery and was going to be released back into the world. The chief medical officer had even cleared him to make contact with his family, as long as he never told anyone that he'd actually been away for three years, living with a warrior tribe in the savannah of Grmsiohk instead of the one year it had been in Cardiff.

This was the first Flat Holm patient to ever be released from care, and for Jack, it was a clear sign that he'd done something right. Just this once, he'd saved a life that had been ruined. This meant that he  _was_  doing enough, that he hadn't completely failed the Rift refugees. And maybe, the release of this one man would be a hope for the others, convincing them to work harder at their recoveries so they could leave as well.

Jack was so ecstatic at the news that he was even inclined to be nice to Jones, and after having a quick celebratory drink, he typed up the reports the new archivist had requested and printed them out.


	9. Chapter 9

Ianto dropped off Mica and David at school early on Friday so he'd have time to look over the plans for the digital archives one last time before Toshiko arrived. He made a few edits, then saved the documents, hoping the tech expert wouldn't laugh him all the way back to London.

Surprisingly, Toshiko was the only one in when he descend to the Hub. He hesitated approaching her, deciding to make some coffee before going over.

"Toshiko?" he asked, just the barest hint of his nervousness audible. "Could I ask you a favor?"

She looked a bit wary as she turned away her computer, but she nodded. Ianto carried Dr. Harper's vacant chair the few feet from his desk and sat down next to her.

"I was drawing out my plans for a digital archive, but I don't have the experience necessary to create the framework," he explained. "Captain Harkness suggested I ask you for advice." He barely kept himself from biting his lip, admonishing that he might do not to look like a schoolchild asking for help on a paper in addition to someone too stupid to write software in a language he'd used for four years.

To Ianto's relief, Toshiko didn't laugh. Instead, the suspicion drained off her face "What have you got?" she asked, pulling up his supposedly secure folder on the server. If Ianto hadn't spent four years in Torchwood London, where bugging employees' flats was almost expected and emails were monitored for keywords, Ianto might have been offended at the breach of privacy.

He pointed out the written plans as well as the beginnings of the code he'd written. He sat quietly for several minutes while Toshiko looked it over, occasionally muttering to herself in subclasses and delegates and embedded files. Ianto felt a bit embarrassed to have taken upon himself something that suddenly seemed so far out of his depth.

Finally, Toshiko looked up. "This is a big project," she said. Ianto wasn't sure if she were impressed or condescending or simply stating a fact. "You've got the basic principles down, but you're right, it really requires an expert."

Ianto felt unsure what to say, but realized he was tired of being unsure of what to say and decided to go for it. "Can you do it?"

She turned to him, back very straight, and looked him in the eye. That was when Ianto remembered why he was always careful with what he said around them and cursed the momentary lack of consideration.

"I can definitely do it," she said stiffly. "But it may take a while."

"I'll help you, if there's anything I can do," he rushed to say, managing to stutter once or twice. "I mean, I'm not trying to force all this work onto you, but Captain Harkness said you'd be able to do it and I-"

"I'll take care of it," she interrupted curtly, turning back to the monitors.

Ianto sat in silence for a few moments, before figuring out that he'd been dismissed. "Thank you Toshiko," he said quietly, then put Owen's chair back in its rightful place and returned to the tourist office.

He sat in the chair for ten minutes or so, feeling alone and not having anything much to do. This annoyed him: Ianto knew that, sometime soon, he'd think of something he wished he had done but hadn't been able to think of when he had time. After wracking his brains, Ianto remembered the cleaning supplies he'd gotten Captain Harkness to authorize and set out to buy them.

He returned around ten thirty and brought them down to the Hub to store in a conveniently large closet only a few rooms away from the main Hub. When he returned to the open space, it was to the sound of Dr. Harper groaning. The medic was covering his face with a file folder, the papers strewn over the workstation. Toshiko, Captain Harkness and Gwen were standing around the platform, looking on in amusement and joking amongst themselves.

"Teaboy, where have you been?" The medic complained. "Make me a coffee." Ianto diagnosed a hangover from the strong smell of alcohol that was emanating from the platform.

"He's been waiting for you since nine," Gwen commented, arms crossed. "Have you got a crush on the Teaboy, Owen?" she asked, grinning like she'd won some game.

Ianto blushed, but decided to take the initiative. "I think you could manage to be a bit more polite, Dr. Harper," he said casually.

The captain snorted.

"Fine,  _please_  make me a coffee." Ianto smiled and headed for the machine. As he left, he heard Dr. Harper muttering, "I'd like to see you drink this much and see how polite you are afterwards," to much muffled laughter.

He made a full pot and handed the mugs out to the team. They were standing around chatting, everyone having a laugh at the doctor's expense. While no one thanked him for the coffee, Gwen and even Captain Harkness smiled as he handed off their mugs. Dr. Harper snatched his and chugged half of it immediately, and Toshiko ignored him. Ianto was a bit worried he'd offended her, but didn't have much time to think about it.

"Jones!" The Captain snapped his fingers and lit up like he'd just remembered something. "I wrote those reports you asked for." He disappeared into his office for a moment and returned with a few stapled papers, and a large cardboard box. "Here."

Ianto hesitated, thumbing through the papers slowly. The captain recognized his uncertainty. "Is something wrong?" he said brazenly.

"Do- um, did you save this on the computer, sir?" Ianto asked. His dislike of correcting superiors in front of their staff came second, in this case, to his fear of having to retype all the documents.

"Of course," the captain answered. "Do you need it that way instead?"

"Yes, thank you, sir," Ianto said, holding in a sigh of relief.

"Fine," Captain Harkness nodded. "Owen!" he called, looking past Ianto, who took the opportunity to take his leave. "Now that you're awake, don't you have a call to return? Some pretty M.E. with a mysterious circumstances case?"

"Shove off," Dr. Harper groaned. As Ianto left the Hub toward the archives, he smirked.

When he reached the entrance to the archives two floors below the Hub, Ianto set the box on a table he'd cleared off and took the maps out of it. After inspecting the plans for each of the three archive levels, he did a walk-through of each one and began plotting in his head where each section would be.

When he surfaced for lunch, Gwen asked if he could order pizza. Ianto found the Jubilee's menu and ordered everyone's choice, making Dr. Harper's meat feast an extra large instead of ordering another for himself.

When the food arrived, Ianto found that he had no excuse not to sit with the team. He carried the pizza boxes up to the conference room, where the others were already seated. He passed out the servings, the vegetable next to Toshiko, extra cheese for Gwen, Hawaiian for Captain Harkness and sat next to Dr. Harper so they could share the meat feast. He glanced around anxiously as he took his seat, but no one reacted besides Gwen, who gave him a blinding smile.

The others were watching the captain, who swallowed a large bite of pizza and then started talking, apparently picking up where he'd left off when Ianto had arrived.

"So things were kinda tense, right, I mean it's not every day you see an Altrusian naked in your restaurant." He took another bite of pizza and continued talking through the decimated pie as Ianto tried to hide his cringe. "My friend and I are trying to get the damn thing back in its cage, but before we can, it catches the scent of the chef's signature dish, which is the equivalent of roast lamb, and takes off."

Dr. Harper and Toshiko both started laughing, while Gwen was just smiling along with the story. Ianto guessed that the other two had a greater knowledge of the alien the captain mentioned.

"Unfortunately, that dish was being served to the president of an interplanetary commission of weapon retailers, and his security thought the Altrusian was attacking. I'm trying to stun the poor thing and my partner's universal translator is on the blink, so he ends up tackled to the floor before he can even put his hands up. I catch the Altrusian, but not before it can grab the lamb. So here I am, I've got what looks like a hairless Egyptian cat in my arms with a huge side of meat in its fangs, squirming and screeching, four laser blasters pointed at me, and the only phrase I know of their language is 'fancy a drink?'"

The captain's storytelling was so captivating that by this point all of them were cracking up, even Ianto. Dr. Harper was slamming his fist on the glass table and Toshiko had tears streaming down her face. Gwen clutched her stomach, gasping for air and Ianto was biting his lip in an attempt not to burst into laughter.

The captain's face blushed red as he laughed at himself and his blue eyes shone from beneath the dark flop of his hair. Ianto's eyes skated down his neck as the captain tipped his head back, down his chest and his muscled arms. He watched the movement of the captain's chest as the man gasped for air.

"Luckily, one of the patrons at the restaurant spoke our language and was able to explain that we weren't attacking anyone. They let us go, but-" here Captain Harkness had wait until he stopped laughing to finish. "-but only once we'd given the president of the commission information on where to get his own pet Altrusian. Apparently he thought it was cute!"

The captain started to laugh again and Ianto stared. Somehow, even though he'd seen that face deadly and angry as it threatened him, he couldn't take his eyes off the man laughing. A tickling feeling curled in his chest while he watched, so he looked away and swallowed.

Later on, when Gwen'd had a call from her boyfriend and Captain Harkness had taken one from UNIT, Dr. Harper excused himself to go home and Toshiko left without a word. Ianto was left clearing up their dinner, but he found he was actually feeling rather good. He remembered the uproarious laughter from earlier and smiled.

Maybe life in Cardiff was beginning to look up.


	10. Chapter 10

When Ianto got a text at seven on Saturday morning saying that the Rift looked clear and everyone could have the weekend off, he shrugged and decided it was time to really start getting settled in. He went to his sister's place and threw a load of laundry into the wash and cleaned their kitchen while he waited for the family to wake up.

He'd put a lot of thought into his sister's situation. Rhiannon was tough as nails, and was determined that even her recent chemotherapy treatments would not keep her down for the count. Of course, the family was learning all too quickly that determination did not always stand up against poisonous chemicals invading ones body. The siblings had discussed the matter and Ianto had decided that he would come over as much as he could, despite his busy Torchwood schedule. He wanted to help her and the kids with the normal, everyday things that always fall by the wayside when more important things are taking up attention: laundry, homework, cleaning and sweeping up. He even offered to babysit and give Johnny and Rhi a night off every once in a while. Although his sister was insistent that he didn't need to devote so much time, Ianto was resolute: he loved his family, even if he couldn't stand them half the time, and he would do anything in his power to make their lives safer, happier, and more comfortable.

When Rhiannon came into the family room to find him dusting, she said he didn't have to, as always. Ianto just ignored her until he finished and then asked for the numbers of a few old friends he'd lost contact with since he left for London five years previously. After calling around, he discovered that several former mates of his were heading to an old haunt for a game of rugby. Always the sportsman and looking to catch up, Ianto accepted an invitation.

A few hours later, toasting old times and new times in a pub while covered with mud, Ianto grinned at his friends. He started catching up with their lives, hearing the usual gossip about who'd married whom and who'd gotten whom pregnant. It was a refreshing change from work, where he'd barely had an actual conversation all week. It also reminded him that he ought to call his friends from Torchwood London and tell them the good parts of his new job.

Promising to stop by again sometime, though warning everyone that he had an all-hours job ("bleedin' Official Secrets crap, I bet it's all ruddy paperwork, eh Ifan?"), Ianto took his leave from the boys around six and stopped by Tesco to stock up his flat. He'd eaten most of his meals at the Hub that week and what he'd eaten at the flat had all been out of a box. Ianto wasn't a huge cooker but he didn't much like pizza packets or microwave dinners, so it was better to have some food in his cupboards, even if it was just canned soup.

Settling down with a bottle from a six-pack and a good DVD, Ianto had just started eating when his mobile rang. Hoping it wasn't work calling, he answered.

"Hello?"

"Ianto? It's Gwen. I was just wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow night? My boyfriend Rhys is having a birthday party at the bowling alley and wanted me to invite some friends from work."

Ianto was pleasantly surprised to hear that he was included in the 'friends' category, but felt like a chance was slipping through his fingers. "I'm sorry Gwen, I can't. My sister would flay me if I missed Sunday dinner. She's quite convinced that, since I'm back in Cardiff, it's her opportunity to make up for all the missed time in London."

"All right then." Gwen sounded disappointed, even over the phone, which made Ianto feel both apologetic and strangely pleased. "Who knows, we might get called into work then anyway. I'll see you, then?"

"See you," he answered, and hung up, returning to his movie.

The next day was a bit quieter. Ianto hung around the flat, beginning to unpack the boxes that remained from his time living with Lisa. He found the process cathartic, although each bit of furniture or decoration reminded him of the happy relationship he'd lost, the feelings and connection he'd felt that apparently didn't mean as much to the one he'd shared them with. He put up a few pictures Rhiannon had given him and set up his kitchen, making a trip to Asda to buy a few dishes and utensils. He hadn't realized he'd forgotten them when he'd moved out, since he'd waited barely two weeks between hearing his sister's diagnosis and moving to Cardiff.

While he was there, Ianto took into account his higher salary at Torchwood Three and began to search for proper furniture. His flat wasn't that large, but it had a living room, a bedroom and a spare bedroom that all ought to be decorated in some way, unless he wanted them left blank. Ianto found he really didn't want them to remain empty, not after living with Lisa, who had painted all the walls and filled each room to overflowing, and then staying with his sister, whose small home was as full as two children and two adults could make it.

He didn't make any decisions, but took a few notes and pictures and decided he'd think about what he wanted the coloring scheme of the whole flat to look like. If Ianto felt like a bit of an idiot considering color schemes and complementing shades, he kept it to himself.

That night, he helped his sister cook the Sunday dinner (actually he cooked most of it and let her do her favorite dishes) then sat down to the one night a week Rhiannon insisted her family eat at the dinner table instead of in front of the telly. David kept trying to play his GameBoy at the table, while Mica babbled on about her art project at school and Johnny babbled on, mouth full, about his mates at work. Ianto rolled his eyes at Rhiannon and they shared a disparaging sigh.

Ianto had rarely felt more at home.

[*]

On Monday morning, Ianto stopped by Gwen's desk with a wrapped gift. "For Rhys," he explained. "I'm sorry I couldn't make the party."

She looked quite surprised, but smiled sweetly at him (the gap-tooth almost made him laugh) and thanked him for her boyfriend.

Ianto began to fall into a routine. He'd hand out coffee in the mornings, usually to silence from the others, though Gwen often offered some greeting or piece of news from the outside world. Then he'd begin shifting boxes in the archives, sorting those artifacts which already had identification into the groups he was eventually going to file them under. He'd order lunch for the team at noon, sometimes eating with them, but normally bringing a healthier meal he'd made at home into the archives while he sketched some more plans.

Gwen did decide to drag him to their lunch one day after all, ignoring the silent disapproval of her teammates, who still refused to warm up to him. She chose a café that served mostly seafood and Ianto found that most of the menu was filled with his favorites; the discovery made Gwen happier than he felt was called for. She said Rhys thanked him for the heating pad that he could strap onto his chair at work; Ianto had chosen it after Gwen mentioned Rhys' back pain. They talked more about Torchwood: Ianto learned of Gwen's tumultuous beginnings with the alien sex-mist and Ianto shared the story of spilling coffee onto his manager's lap his first day on the job. After that day, Ianto even made it to Gwen's flat once or twice to meet the boyfriend: Rhys welcomed him with open arms after discovering they both supported the same teams, much to Gwen's chagrin.

After lunch, Ianto stayed in the tourist office and began typing up the team's reports. With the exception of Toshiko, the team preferred to write mission reports by hand, and since the Rift had ended its nearly week-long rest, there were several new field missions to write up. Ianto had watched all these standing behind Toshiko's desk. He felt a bit out-of-place, but he always learned a lot about how Torchwood Cardiff worked as Captain Harkness barked orders and Dr. Harper and Gwen bickered and Toshiko blushed.

Toshiko had completed his program by Thursday mid-afternoon, a feat which made Ianto somewhat terrified of the woman's skill: he'd expected it to take two weeks at the absolute minimum. When he'd expressed his surprise, respectfully, Toshiko had been rather smug.

"It wasn't particularly difficult," she'd said dismissively.

Ianto was able to begin converting the reports saved in Cardiff's current digital archives into his new method, as well as doing all the cross-referencing to the artifacts and other reports he'd planned. Toshiko's software was simply brilliant, with prompts he could tell would be helpful for people learning to use the system and easily navigable formatting. Ianto had only basic computer science understanding but the beauty of the software blew his mind. When he mentioned the genius of the programming over dinner, Toshiko had looked shy while the captain jumped to compliment her. But when Owen said off-handedly that he wasn't surprised in the least and Tosh blushed a truly stunning shade of red, Ianto learned a bit more about his colleague.

He had begun eating dinner with the team. While he never said much and no one ever acknowledged him, he wasn't banned from the conference room and even silently pulled up a chair at the team's comedy movie night.

He went out for coffee with Connie, and then dinner and then for more coffee at his place and then he'd made them breakfast in bed. It wasn't like Ianto to move so fast, but she was playful and forward and told him that since her rota meant she was only in Cardiff two or three days a week on average, she didn't mind if he wanted to see other people. Besides the sex, they had an immediate connection and seemed to instantly feel comfortable around each other. Both of them agreed that they would be very good friends. Ianto was relieved: he needed a friend in Cardiff, even if she wasn't there much.

Life went on in peace for several weeks, during which time Ianto tried to avoid looking straight on at the Captain Harkness, particularly when he was flirting. This was something Captain Harkness managed to do a lot. Ianto saw him flirting both in the Hub and in the field when he was brought along for crowd control and Retcon dispensation a few times. Whether it was gently with Toshiko, tauntingly at Dr. Harper, somewhat seriously with Gwen, brazenly to Cardiff police officers, as a manipulation technique for suspects or comfort to victims and witnesses, it seemed to Ianto that the captain simply couldn't turn it off.

Except when it came to him.

Captain Harkness had not flirted with Ianto, not once. He winked at PCs, stood suspiciously close during interviews and made one casual passerby nearly choke on an innuendo, but Ianto had never seen so much as a glance in his direction, and for that he was professionally grateful, if inexplicably unhappy.

Whenever the captain was flirting with someone, Ianto tried not to pay attention. He tried not to focus on the man's sparkling eyes and tanned skin, his curving pink lips and even the swish of his coat. He couldn't help how he shivered when he heard the captain's voice lower salaciously, and even the curt sound of his name, "Jones!" called from the captain's lips made his mouth feel dry.

Ianto hated it all.

He'd always had a feeling that he wasn't quite straight. Though he'd lived for several months with Lisa and had relationships with other women, there'd also been a few men on whom Ianto's eyes and thoughts had lingered. The feelings never seemed to be as strong as his attraction to women, though, so he generally ignored them and whatever they signified.

His obsession with the captain, though, was stronger than he'd ever felt toward a man and Ianto was quite shaken by the fear that he might actually be attracted to Captain Harkness. He comforted himself by pointing out that the captain seemed to actively hate him. Despite the fact that Ianto and the team seemed to have settled into a neutral sort of truce, he still received hard glares and pointed silences at times that did not affect the flow of work in the Hub, from Captain Harkness, Dr. Harper and Toshiko.

Despite the hostility of his colleagues, though, Ianto was actually enjoying Cardiff. He had found good company with Gwen, Connie and his sister's family; he'd met up with his old friends at their pub a few times and had kept in contact through emails with his London crowd. At work, his plans for the archives and the databases kept him enthralled, and his limited membership to the Torchwood team gave him human contact.

Six and a half weeks after he'd begun working for Torchwood Cardiff, it all fell apart.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where it starts getting interesting...

Ianto was watching the screens when Gwen and Dr. Harper chased Bernie Harris, so he caught the moment when Gwen's expression changed. Her face changed from tired but relieved, to surprised, then suddenly to horrified. When the others caught up with her, she actually said what he'd half-expected: "I've seen a ghost."

That night, he sat in his usual seat at the far end of the conference table and listened as Gwen tried to explain exactly what she'd felt from the little boy, while Captain Harkness and Toshiko tried to get information about the mechanics of the device and Dr. Harper teased her about being so sickeningly compassionate.

Ianto continued with his own work in the archives but made sure to hang around the Hub, bringing lunch for the team as they investigated. Ianto was curious about the team's first real investigation since he'd arrived in Cardiff. While he didn't say anything to help the investigation, out of fear that his ideas would be mocked or disregarded, he was amused by the captain trying to speak around a mouthful of donut.

The next morning, Ianto was ordered to watch the Rift monitors while the team went out to search for Bernie Harris. Dr. Harper was very clear to emphasize when he called 'while  _we_ 're out looking,' just another of his ongoing jabs to remind Ianto how he was obviously not part of the team. Even Gwen had gotten used to it and stopped defending him, just rolling her eyes and accepting the status quo.

When the others returned, Ianto was ready to greet them with coffee, but he quickly determined that something stronger would be necessary for the obviously traumatized Dr. Harper. Listening to the conversation, Ianto gleaned that, due to the energy machine Gwen had retrieved, Dr. Harper had come very close to experiencing a rape and murder first-hand and had been overcome by the emotions of the victim. He gave the medic's brew a shot of alcohol (something that would complement the coffee, of course, otherwise the whole thing would be disgusting) and got what might have been a grateful look from the slightly shaking man. He had a bad feeling of foreboding when the doctor left in a dark mood, but Gwen was busy and so he had no one to whom he could tell his worries.

When Dr. Harper managed to corner Bernie Harris the next day, Ianto had another feeling of foreboding and made sure he was in the Hub when the team returned from Bernie's flat. As they arrived, Toshiko and Dr. Harper were muttering about Gwen using the Ghost Machine again. When they noticed that he was in the vicinity, the pair gave him matching suspicious glares and left the Hub. Ianto saw Gwen and Captain Harkness in the man's office, clearly having a personal discussion. He watched for a few moments, trying not to study the expressive nature of the captain's face when it wasn't twisted in anger or set in indifference. With a last guilty glance at the carefree flop of Captain Harkness' hair over his forehead, Ianto turned away and started neatening up the desks, which had somehow become filthy once again.

Later that night, Ianto was ghosting along the edges of the Hub with cleaning supplies when Captain Harkness' voice rang out through the space, loud and irritated. Ianto looked up at the grated footpaths that lined the walls of the Hub to find the captain talking on his mobile.

"Ed Morgan. Owen went freelance earlier, decided to pay him a visit," the captain said pointedly, glaring at Dr. Harper as the medic trudged through the Hub. "Wanted to frighten him, sounds like he succeeded."

Ianto listened as the tale of blackmail was revealed, cumulating in Captain Harkness shouting orders to the doctor and the computer expert and the two men rushing out of the Hub. Ianto fell into place at the monitor next to Toshiko, pulling up multiple CCTV view of the area around Bernie's flat so he could help her keep track of the proceedings.

Toshiko found Ed Morgan on the streets, heading toward Bernie's flat and called the captain to warn him. Before they could figure out what was going on, the ugly scene was playing out in front of Bernie's apartment building. Without sound, Ianto and Toshiko could only watch the shadowed imaged on the monitors while Morgan threatened Gwen and Bernie with a knife. Finally, Dr. Harper and Captain Harkness appeared behind the old man.

They stripped Morgan of the knife and Toshiko let out a relieved sigh. The bad feeling Ianto'd had the entire investigation was twisting his stomach, and he kept his eyes glued to the scene, quickly pointing it out when the medic began to threaten Morgan with the knife. "Look!"

"No, Owen, please!" Toshiko whispered to her monitor. "You promised me you wouldn't!"

Ianto glanced at her in surprise; she'd known Dr. Harper was feeling homicidal? Then he went back to watching: he could try and figure it out later.

Gwen took the knife from Dr. Harper and Ianto sighed, believing it to finally be over. Toshiko shrieked as Ed Morgan attacked Gwen. Ianto's eyes were opened wide in horror as the compassionate former cop was forced to stab him in self-defense. The two left behind at the Hub barely breathed as Gwen stood in shock, staring at her darkened hands, while Dr. Harper tried to save Morgan's life.

Ianto turned to Toshiko in horror. "What do we do?" he whispered.

The Japanese woman swallowed hard. "Get a body from storage," she said slowly.

"What?" he asked, completely confused.

"I said, get a body from storage!" she snapped, almost yelling. Ianto stared at her for an instant, lost. "Go!"

Ianto flinched and walked quickly toward the storage areas in the first basement where the bodies of all Torchwood's kills were boxed away. By the time he arrived, a particular body was already being defrosted and its drawer was blinking a small red light. Ianto opened the drawer when the blinking became the solid glow of the all-clear.

The moment he saw the body, Ianto knew what Tosh had in mind. The man was in his late sixties, Caucasian, a bit overweight and had silvery-gray hair. He reached a shaky hand over to the intercom. "T-toshiko? I've got the body."

"He's got a history of suicide attempts. It seems he tried drowning this time," she stated, voice cold. "You know what to do."

The intercom cut out. Ianto was left in the absolute silence of the morgue, eyes wide and staring at the innocent corpse he'd been ordered to defile to cover up yet another Torchwood murder. "Yes ma'am," he whispered into the cold air, and began.

[*]

By the time the three field agents returned, Ianto had prepared the body and stored it for disposal in the Bay the next day. Gwen's hands were shiny and smelled of sanitizer as she came through the door to the Hub and promptly fell into Ianto's arms, trying to hide her shaking and sobs from the others. Ianto didn't look up from her dark curtain of hair, but he could feel the accusing weight of Dr. Harper and Captain Harkness' glares as they all migrated to the captain's office.

Toshiko brought a blanket for Gwen and Ianto excused himself to make the disheveled woman a hot cup of tea. When he brought it back, the others were still standing or sitting in silence, and Ianto realized more than tea was required. The captain seemed to notice the same thing and nodded toward an assortment of shot glasses on a nearby shelf, accompanied by a bottle of dark golden liquid.

While he was pouring the drinks, Toshiko finally broke the silence. Ianto listened unobtrusively while Owen admitted his wrongdoings and Gwen her guilt. The captain pondered aloud for a few moments on the Ghost Machine, then got up to lock it in the secure archives. Ianto handed out the glasses to everyone but Gwen. She met his eyes with a dull sort of questioning, face miserable, tear tracks shimmering down her face.

"I'll take you home," he offered, quietly so that the others could barely hear.

Gwen told him she wanted to talk with the captain for a few minutes on the Plass, so he busied himself with a quick cleaning of the tourist office, head spinning with everything he'd seen that night and trying to comprehend it. By the time the pair reentered the tourist office, it was past dawn. Captain Harkness gave Gwen a soft kiss on the forehead and handed her swaying form off to Ianto, a very clear warning look on his face where Gwen couldn't see it. Ianto nodded solemnly, accepting both the responsibility of caring for his teammate and the threat of what would happen if he failed in that duty.

When he half-carried the Welshwoman, nearly asleep from exhaustion, up the stairs to her flat and knocked on the door, Rhys answered frantically.

"Gwen, what's happened to ya! I was so worried!" He helped Ianto guide her to their bedroom. Gwen gave her boyfriend a small squeeze before she fell asleep fully clothed. Once she'd been settled in, Rhys dragged Ianto to the living room.

"What on Earth happened tonight, Ianto?" Rhys said angrily, trying to keep his voice down. He waved a hand threateningly at his friend. "And don't give me any of that bullshit about secrets! Gwen is my girlfriend, and I think I have the right to hear the truth!"

"I can't tell you everything," Ianto began. Seeing Rhys only become angrier, he sat down on the couch. After a moment the larger man sat down beside him, the couch creaking under their combined weights.

"I don't understand," Rhys said, his voice filled with frustrated confusion and sadness. "I try and be supportive, but I don't know what she needs!"

"There was an incident tonight." Ianto tried to think of an explanation that wouldn't give away anything that needed to be kept a secret while also not leaving Rhys in the dark. "I think you should ask Gwen for the details, but… a man died."

Rhys looked up, frightened. "Is she alright?" He began to stand, looking toward their bedroom. Ianto dragged him back to the couch.

"She's fine, she's just… shaken up."

"What am I meant to do?" Rhys held his head in his hands. "I don't know how to help her."

Ianto wished there was more he could do, something he could say. He had never been good at comforting people. He patted Rhys on the back and sat silently beside him while the other man wrestled with his problems.

[*]

Jack had sent the team home and given them Friday off. It was practically morning already, anyways, and they'd had a rough night.

He returned to his office and sat staring at the last glass of scotch Jones had poured. After a few minutes of contemplation, he downed it in one. Then, spying the bottle still resting on his desk, he poured himself another and drank that. And then a third.

Head pleasantly lighter, Jack woke up his computer and typed up the report Jones would need to send to London, wanting to get his thoughts in order before what he considered more important: his Captain's Log. He saved Jones' report in the shared folder the London man had set up for those documents which were to be sent off to Torchwood One.

After that was out of the way Jack moved on. However, by the time he finished the Captain's Log, accumulated exhaustion and the drinks caught up with him, and he hit save as, then enter, just before he lowered his face onto his arms and fell asleep on his desk.

He never noticed that he hadn't saved the Log in his own secure account, but Jones' Torchwood One folder.


	12. Chapter 12

Ianto was curled up on his new couch with Connie under a duvet, sharing a box of ice cream, when his laptop chimed.

"Gotta get that," he said, setting the ice cream on the side table and forcing her to move out of his way so he could get off the couch.

"Can't it wait until the commercial!" she whined, trying to look around him at the telly while he opened the computer.

"Nope. Special message from Torchwood One. That sound means it's from high up, gotta pay attention."  
"At least get back on the couch, you're letting in a draft," she complained. Ianto obeyed, tucking the blanket around them both, laptop on his lap. "Happy now?" he asked.

"Not with your big 'ead in the way," she tried to shove him. "What's wrong?"

Ianto's expression had become confused. "Yvonne's coming to Cardiff."

Connie's eyebrows rose in an equal approximation of Ianto's mood. "What, Yvonne Hartman? Director of Torchwood One? What's she want with your laptop?"

"I'm technically a liaison, between Cardiff and London. Not a happy position to be in," he added.  
Connie nodded sympathetically. "You told me. Your teammates still not lettin' down with the cold shoulder, eh?"

"Just Gwen," he answered, eyes scanning the official email. "God, she's coming on Monday! That's tomorrow!"

"Doesn't like to waste time, does she?"

"It must be something important," Ianto muttered to himself. "She never leaves the Tower if she doesn't have to, it's her domain. This must be big. Damn it, Captain Harkness is not going to like this," he ran a hand through his hair in anxiety.

"You know, I never got a straight answer from you," Connie noted. "Why do you still call 'im that? I mean, you've been in Cardiff a month now. And you said the others all call 'im 'Jack,'" she pointed out.

"It, I…" he failed to come up with a good answer while his mind was still focused on the Director's upcoming trip. "He still doesn't like me. I'm still the spy London blackmailed them into taking, there's no way I could be that friendly. Besides, they're not being actively cruel, for the most part, just…"

"Alienating?" Connie said, almost giggling. At a glare, she became serious again.

"There's a difference between 'formal' and actin' like a servant all the time, Yan." The blonde woman shifted between his body and the couch so she was facing him. "You've gotta stand up for yourself," she urged. "They're never gonna respect you if you let 'em walk all over you."

"It's hard," Ianto tried to explain, "because I know where they're coming from. In London, they'll send an Internal Affairs officer 'round the departments every month or so. Sometimes they were nice about it, and others were all hard about it. 'Cause it was their job, to find people who weren't doing their work up to requirements and fire them, and they knew none of us wanted them there. Now I'm one of them." He tried to chuckle and it came out sounding like a sniff.

Connie shifted and wrapped her arms around him so he was forced to hug her back. "I'm sorry you got forced into this," she murmured in his ear. "I just met you a few weeks ago and I already know you're not like that, that you'd never want to betray a colleague. You're far too honest for that, Ianto Jones," she smiled, and Ianto gave a watery laugh.

"You're the only one I can talk to about this," he whispered into her hair. "Gwen would feel torn by the others, and I can't give my sister another reason to worry about me."

"Then you can talk to me, and I'll be here," she promised, hugging him tighter and then pulling back. "Well, maybe not  _here_  here, but you've got my mobile number and all that."

Ianto snorted. "You're the best woman a man could ever ask for Connie," he said reverently, staring up at her in worship. "I don't know what I would ever do without you. Stay here forever!" he finished dramatically.

"Shut up, you daft bugger," she grinned, snagging the ice cream from the table and flopping back beside him and tugging on the duvet. "My program's back on."

[*]

Jack was also sharing a blanket with someone when his phone beeped to signify a forwarded email alert, but he wasn't exactly snuggling and he didn't stop what he was doing to check the message.

An hour later, dressed and walking the streets of Cardiff once again, he pulled out his phone. He was lucky he wasn't hit by a car when he stopped in the middle of the street. "What?"

[*]

"Again?" Connie complained. "What happened to havin' a nice quiet Sunday while I'm in town?"

"Sorry, it's the captain," Ianto answered from the bedroom. "I've got to go in. He's probably heard about Yvonne's visit and he's ready to shoot something. Or someone," he added, reentering the living room in a fully pressed suit.

Connie stared in shock. "You've only been in there two minutes!"

"It's a gift," Ianto grinned. "You want to help me with my tie, like a good girlfriend?"

The UNIT courier rolled her eyes, but surprised Ianto by actually coming over and doing up his tie. "Remember what I said: stand up for yourself."

"Yes dear," Ianto joked.

"I'm serious!" she said entreatingly. Ianto looked away from her piercing gray eyes. "However angry he is, this is not your fault. Say it with me, 'this is not my fault.'" She paused. "You're not saying it."

" _Fine_. This is not my fault."

[*]

"This is your fault!"

"I'm sorry sir; I don't know what she wants!" Ianto defended. His nails dug into the wood of the chair he stood behind; he hadn't even sat down in the captain's office before the shouting began.

"What did you tell her?" Captain Harkness raged. "What does she think she's got on us?"

"I don't know," Ianto said quietly. The captain was pacing his office in fury, stepping out onto the platform before coming back inside.

"Why is she coming?" Captain Harkness growled. When Ianto didn't reply he spun around to face the younger man. "Well!"

"She- the email said it was for an investigation, suspicious activities," Ianto summarized. "I don't know specifically-"

"You're going to find out!" The captain leaned into Ianto, making the Welshman notice forcefully that the other man was an inch or so taller than him, and significantly broader. "You're going to tell me what she wants, and where she got her information. And it better not have been from you!"

With that, Captain Harkness stormed out of the office. Ianto was left, standing stock-still. He could still feel the heat of the captain's words on his face, and that warm scent he'd noticed the day of the Weevil attack was subtly hanging in the air.

Ianto wasn't sure it was fear that was making his breath come heavier.

[*]

"I knew this was gonna happen!" Owen spun angrily, walking around the conference table to sit forcefully in his chair. "Bloody tosser, knew 'e was up to no good."

"You said yourself Jack, we don't know that Ianto was responsible for this!" Gwen protested to their leader.

Jack shook his head. "What else could it be? Yvonne didn't have any information on us before he came here, and now she's got enough evidence for an investigative warrant into our activities. That isn't a small thing, Gwen," he explained. "They'd have to go through Internal Affairs to investigate even a single employee. If it's directed at Torchwood Three as a whole, Yvonne would have to petition the Queen herself."

"She found out about Suzie, who's to say this information wasn't collected the same way?" Gwen was refusing to back down.

"Oh grow up, Cooper!" Owen shouted. "This is the real world! He's not gonna be any less of a traitor just 'cause you two shared some recipes."

"Give her a break, Owen," Tosh intervened. The others stopped for a moment, rather surprised.

"You haven't had much to say about Ianto, Tosh," Gwen observed. "What do you think?"

Tosh glanced at Jack, who just raised his jaw and returned her gaze. She drew a calm breath. "I believe you Gwen, when you say he's a nice person. But that doesn't mean he's not responsible for this. Lots of good people do bad things, even though they seem completely nice and friendly otherwise."

Gwen took some inference from her words and ran with the idea. "Maybe he's being coerced," she posited. "Is that possible?" she questioned Jack.

"Maybe, or maybe he's just doing what he's told," Jack said impatiently. "Torchwood London's all about 'Queen and Country,' doing your duty. It doesn't matter what his incentives are, the fact is that Yvonne will take any excuse to attack Torchwood Three. And he," Jack pointed in the direction of the tourist office, "is the one who will give her that excuse, whether we like it or not."

"What's it going to be like on Monday?" Tosh asked.

"They'll come into the Hub," Jack began. "Exchange some pleasantries, then I'll get impatient and make them tell us what they want with us. After they set out the objectives of the investigation, they'll request interviews and evidence from our mission reports or the archives or something to that effect, do some investigation. It shouldn't take more than a few days."

"Won't that interfere with watching the Rift?" Owen objected.

Jack shook his head. "They'll let us do our jobs, they're not that egotistic," he conceded. "We'll just have to be careful with what we say. Be detailed, but to the point. Don't answer any questions they don't ask, don't offer any information of your own accord. This is an attack," he stressed, outlining the words with emphatic gestures. "These people aren't going to be playing fair. Yvonne's been looking to take over Cardiff since she was Deputy Head before the new millennium, so be careful what you say." He waited until they all nodded their understanding. "And don't answer any questions from Jones, either. For all we know he's been ordered to actively gather information too."

The team filed out of the conference room. Gwen grabbed her coat and purse and headed for the cog door. She took one glance back and saw Jack watching them all from the conference room, arms crossed imposingly over his chest.

Gwen left.

When she reached the tourist office, she nearly gasped when she saw Ianto's tall frame behind the counter. "Something wrong, Gwen?"

"No, n-nothing," she smiled. It felt completely see-through on her lips. "Aren't you going home, it's late."

Ianto shrugged. "Captain Harkness wants me to find out why London's investigatin' us, so I'm emailing a few friends. I'll head out soon."

He sounded just as honest and innocent as ever, even while talking about the investigation Jack said was his fault. Gwen swallowed. Was Ianto actually so transparent, or had he been playing her the entire time, like Owen was saying?

"Gwen? What's wrong?"

Gwen didn't answer as the door to the tourist office slammed behind her.

[*]

She'd driven perhaps a hair too fast coming home, and she stopped to catch her breath in the foyer. The smell of Rhys' cooking slowed down her anxiously beating heart.

"Gwen? Is that you?"

"Right here darlin'," she answered, walking down the steps to the living room. "What're you cooking?"

Rhys didn't return the smile. "What's all this about then, eh? I've just got a call from your Torchwood, Gwen. They said you've been involved with a murder?"

The blood drained from Gwen's face. "I've got to call Jack."


	13. Chapter 13

Monday morning arrived far too soon. Connie had stayed over the night for moral support, and she could see the nervousness he was exuding. She gave him a long hug before he left. "Good luck," she wished for him, gray eyes concerned.

"I'll be fine," he told her. He didn't fool either of them.

Ianto took the stairs down to the Hub, feeling some drive to get rid of his nervous energy. When he reached the bottom he was panting, but felt marginally better. He straightened his suit and tie and walked into the Hub.

Spying the team in the conference room, Ianto made up a tray of coffees and brought it in. He'd expected to inconspicuously hand out the beverages and take his seat to listen to the preparations for the investigation, but they all turned to look at him as one. "Is something wrong?"

Gwen looked like she wanted to say something but Captain Harkness got there first. "Did you get any information about the inquiry?" he asked faux calmly. Ianto immediately knew something had happened and he was treading on thin ice.

"I heard they've been making calls, the usual pre-investigative work, but I don't know anyone in internal affairs so I couldn't get any details," he intoned carefully. Some instinct told him to set the coffees on the table and be ready to run.

"Oh, that's rich," Gwen spat. Ianto looked at her in surprise. The captain sighed.

"Gwen, what did I s-"

"No, Jack! I'm not gonna let you do the talkin'. They called my boyfriend!" She stood up from her seat at the table and began to list, green eyes locked angrily on Ianto's. "They called my ex-partner on the force. They called my old desk sergeant, they called my friends from Uni, they called my  _parents_ , they called my sister, who I haven't seen in years and definitely didn't want to get a call from in the middle of the night askin' me why I'd killed someone!"

By the end of the rant, she was shouting, face red, and no one could think of anything to say.

"And you!" She pointed at Ianto. "No one else knew what happened, no one who could've told them! I thought you were my friend!" she accused, starting to look teary.

Ianto felt like a spotlight was on him. He was sweating as though Gwen's glare was leaving a crosshatch target on his face, but he was all too aware that more than a friendship was possibly on the line here. "I never told anyone that you'd committed murder," he said clearly. "I don't even know why they would think that." His forehead furrowed as he tried to piece it together.

"Like I'd believe that," Gwen raged. Her hair was unwashed, hanging around her face, making her look a hint crazy. Ianto was frightened for a split second that she might attack him and, significant size difference aside, he was quite sure the others would let her injure him before they pulled her off.  _If_  they did.

"I'm sorry Gwen," he shook his head. "I swear, I had nothing to do with this. I'd never betray you like that," he promised.

He looked around. Captain Harkness was glaring, arms folded across his chest. Dr. Harper was copying the expression from the other side of the room. Toshiko was trying to comfort Gwen, who'd sat back in the chair, but even the computer expert managed a dirty look over her shoulder.

"I can see you don't believe me," he noted. Dr. Harper scoffed. "I don't blame you," Ianto admitted. "I don't think I would believe me either." He waited a few moments in case anyone had something to say. "I'll be in the tourist office, I suppose, until breakfast arrives. They've told us to expect a party of six, so I ordered some fruit and pastries."

With this, he left the room, silent but for the sound of Gwen's sobs.

[*]

"Ianto!" The Director of Torchwood One shook his hand politely, a wide smile on her face.

Her hair was just as bouncy as he remembered. "Ms. Hartman," Ianto nodded deferentially. He looked at the five Torchwood London agents behind her and almost jumped in surprise.

"Yvonne, please," the woman insisted. "I know you saw him, Ianto," she said kindly. "Show us down to the Hub, and you can catch up with your friend."

"Of course, ma'am." Ianto led the way through the already open entrance to the Hub and down the dimly lit corridor to the elevator. Only four people could fit at a time, so Ianto, Yvonne and two of the agents stepped in and the others followed Ianto's direction down the stairs.

"How've you been settling into Torchwood Three, Ianto?" Yvonne asked pleasantly as they descended. "Captain Harkness hasn't hit on you yet, has he?"

"He's been a perfect gentleman, ma'am," Ianto answered, dodging the other question. Yvonne's flowery perfume filled the small area to bursting and, just for a moment, Ianto imagined he would prefer another silent, tension-filled ride with the captain.

"Good, good. Wouldn't want you getting frightened," she joked. Ianto smiled automatically in response.

When they reached the bottom, the other agents were already standing quietly, waiting for them. Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "This way," he indicated as the cog door rolled open.

Captain Harkness stepped down from the platform as they came through. The rest of the team was out of sight. "Yvonne, always a pleasure," the captain shook her hand.

Yvonne's grin had the same sardonic hint as the captain's greeting. "The same for me, Jack. Nice place you've got here," she looked around.

"I'd never bring a lady like yourself anywhere worse," he smiled. Yvonne's grin tightened.

"Where are we meeting?" she asked.

Captain Harkness led the way up to the conference room, escorting Yvonne. Four of the agents followed her, while the last remained with Ianto.

Once the door to the conference room had closed, Ianto turned to his friend. "I missed you, Shay," he said quietly.

"Missed you too." Shane 'Shay' King was shorter than Ianto, but thicker, and had an air of confidence about him that made him seem more commanding than his Welsh friend. His light brown hair that was shot through with blonde and his warm skin, nowhere near as pale as Ianto's, gave him the look of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun. He gave Ianto a wide grin that highlighted his small chin and nose and sensitive, dark brown eyes. "Come 'ere, you," he said in a moderate London accent, pulling Ianto in for a hug.

Ianto clutched onto his friend and buried his face in the slightly shorter man's shoulder. Shay held him tightly.

"Why don't you call?" he asked, leaning back and looked at Ianto sadly. "We've been worried. You promised you'd keep in contact, and you always keep your promises."

Ianto tugged the other man back toward the door, heading into the lift as he nodded, swallowing hard. "It's been rough. Transferrin', and Rhia and all," he explained. "How's London?"

Shay raised an eyebrow. "You mean how's Lisa, don't you?" he guessed.

Ianto blushed lightly. "I do care about the others too," he mumbled.

Shay laughed. "We're all good. Robin and Alex are datin' again, Toni got promoted. You know how it is," he shrugged. "And Lisa's… doin' fine."

"Is she seein' anyone, do you know?" Ianto asked, trying not to sound too curious. Seeing uncertainty on his friend's face, he pressed. "You know, don't you?"

Shay nodded, rubbing his cheek as he looked away. "Derek from Resources."

"De-Derek from Resources?" Ianto spluttered as the lift doors opened. "Are you fucking joking?"

"I'm sorry mate, I didn't know how to tell you. She started off with him a week and a half after you left," Shay said apologetically. Ianto stormed down the corridor, Shay following.

"She wants him 'cause he's a fuckin' social climber, and that's it!" Ianto spat.

"I know, I know," his friend comforted.

When they reached the tourist office Ianto put his hands on his hips, trying to stare holes in the wall with his glare. Shay sighed.

"Look, why don't you tell me all about Cardiff? We've got some time before they want us down there," he indicated the way they came. "You can make me some of your coffee?" he suggested with a grin.

Ianto caught the failed attempt at puppy-eyes. "That expression really doesn't suit you," he laughed.

Shay shrugged. "It made you smile, didn't it?" he pointed out. "Now spill. Are those rumors about Captain Harkness real or not?"

Ianto gave him an odd look over his shoulder as he started on the coffee. Shay had taken his chair and was casually spinning around in it. "What rumors? I never heard anything."

"That's 'cause you were always talkin' about rugby and not all the hot men Torchwood has to offer."

Ianto nearly dropped a mug before clearing his throat. "I guess so," he murmured. "So what did they say about him?"

"Just that he was the biggest flirt in the galaxy, slept with a hundred aliens and could charm the pants off anyone but our very own Director Hartless," Shay finished, spinning the chair around with no hands.

"Stop that," Ianto admonished, trying to hide his blush. "You'll break it."

Shay accepted him mug from Ianto with a smile of thanks. "So, what?"

"He's definitely a flirt," Ianto admitted. "If you believe his stories, he has been with aliens, and lots of them."

"Have you shagged him?"

Ianto choked on his coffee. "What?" He stared at his friend in shock. "It's not like you to ask that," he muttered, searching for a towel.

Shay shrugged. "I've started up with Harry, you know, the tall bloke who works under Mabel in Accounting? He's quite a daredevil, I think I'm loosening up a bit."

"You don't need to loosen up," Ianto protested, wiping a few drops of coffee from the counter.

Ianto's friend shook his head thoughtfully. "Nah, I was relaxed with you and the gang. Everyone else I was always quiet around. Anyway, Captain Harkness?"

"No way," Ianto said firmly. "I'm not gay, Shane, I've told you."

"Sure, sure," the brunette smirked.

"I'm not!" Ianto insisted forcefully, throwing the towel hard on the table in the back room.

"All right, Yan, no need to get angry, I'm just kiddin' ya," Shay assured him, sounding a bit surprised at the outburst.

Ianto took a few deep breaths, leaned against the wall. Eventually, he muttered, "I wouldn't have a chance with him anyway, even if I was interested. Which I'm not!" He said louder, turning at the sound of his friend's snickering. "I'm not!"

"I believe you!" Shay declared, not that Ianto believed him. His friend was obviously trying to keep in a smile.

Ianto went to run a hand through his hair and stopped, needing to look perfect for the investigation. "They don't trust me, Shay. Because I'm One."

"What should that matter?" the brunette asked concernedly, eyebrows dipping above his nose. "It's not like you're UNIT or something."

"Captain Harkness and Hartman have some sort of battle of wills goin' on," Ianto explained to his confused friend. "She basically wants me to spy on them and report back if I get any dirt on them. Not in so many words, of course," he curled his lip in both disgust and frustration.

Shay leaned his head on his hand, elbow on the armrest. "You can't say no," he said warningly, thinking it through. "You know what happened to Algie's kid brother when he didn't rat out whoever leaked those plans to UNIT."

"She killed him," Ianto whispered, nodding. "Hartman killed him. Everyone knew, but-"

"They were all too afraid to say anything," Shay finished.

Ianto took a shaky breath. "Rhia's got two kids. I can't risk them," he said hoarsely. He looked helplessly at Shane, his worst thought over the past month spoken when it was finally safe. "What do I do?"

Shay stood up, fiercely sad eyes holding Ianto's. "You do what you have to, to take care of your family," he answered softly. "It's all you can do." He gripped Ianto's neck, forcing the taller Welshman to look him in the eye. "And all of us, me and Evan and Andrea and the whole archive gang, we'll back you up," he whispered. "You're not alone, Yan, you're never alone."

Ianto smiled. "I know. Even if you're not technically in the archives gang anymore," he teased.

Shane rolled his eyes. "Just cause I moved to the field and got more buff than you bookworms will ever dream of doesn't mean I'm not still a geek at heart."

Ianto swallowed, feeling a surge of thanks that he had the best friend anyone could ask for. Before he could think of what he was doing, Ianto leaned forward the few inches between them and pressed his lips against Shay's.


	14. Chapter 14

Ianto leaned back after a few seconds, face heated. "I-I'm sorry," he said quietly. "That was quite out of order."

Shay was staring at him. "I thought you said you weren't gay," he said casually, as though his best friend's face wasn't hovering a few inches from his own.

"I- well, I'm not, but I- I've-" Ianto stumbled over his words, blushing even more thoroughly until Shane interrupted.

"Do you like me, Ianto?" he asked calmly. "Or are you just tryin' to say I'm a great friend, and we can leave it at that?"

Ianto couldn't answer, or look him in the eye. "I've just missed you," he said softly after a while.

He closed his eyes, feeling extremely conscious of his friend's presence, one of Shay's arms still holding his neck, the other around his waist.

Suddenly he was being pressed against a solid body and Shay's mouth was covering his, unbelievably warm. Ianto's stomach was twisting with butterflies and his eyes popped open to see Shay's eyelids a centimeter from his face. When his friend didn't pull back, Ianto relaxed into the kiss and tentatively moved his lips with Shay's, feeling heat explode through his body as they pressed together.

When Shane finally let him go and moved away, Ianto's hands were shaking like it was his first kiss all over again and his breath couldn't decide if it was going in or out.

"You okay?" Shay asked.

Ianto nodded hurriedly in response. He licked his lips automatically, then realized what he'd done and glanced at the other man to see if he'd noticed. There was no judgment in his friend's eyes.

"If you want to talk to me Yan, I'm here," Shay offered gently.

Ianto nodded. "I know." After a moment of silence that Ianto ached to fill, he spoke up. "More coffee?"

"Sure."

Ianto went back to the coffee machine and began a new batch. "So, tell me about this Harry?"

"Sure, now you want to know," Shay teased, retaking his seat in Ianto's chair.

Ianto brandished the empty coffeepot half-seriously. He wasn't sure he was ready for jokes just yet. "Do you want this coffee or not?"

Shay smirked. "Fine then."

A half hour later, when one of the other agents came for them, she found the two friends chatting easily over their drinks. "They're ready for you two," she warned them.

"Thanks Liz," Shay acknowledged, setting his mug on the counter. He and Ianto got up and headed for the Hub.

"You ready for this?" Shane asked quietly.

"Haven't got much of a choice, have I?" Ianto raised an eyebrow in reply.

When they stepped through the door and into the Hub, Ianto's eyes widened as he saw a fight about to break out on the platform.

[*]

Yvonne was lecturing on and on about regulations and the necessity of security, all of which were probably pertinent to the case, but it only made him more impatient. Jack took a sip of coffee to try and calm himself down. The moment the beverage touched his taste buds however, he was reminded that its creator was the one who'd gotten them into the entire mess. He grimaced, setting the cup aside.

"Let's get to the point Yvonne, why are you here?"

The Director of Torchwood London put on an offended look that managed to be reproachful and condescending all at once. "Fine, if you're going to be crude about it," she sniffed. "I'm here because your employees have broken a dozen regulations that have been in place at the Torchwood Institute for decades, not to mention several counts that could be brought up in any federal court of law."

"And what are the charges against my team?" Jack asked through gritted teeth.

An agent in a well-tailored suit handed Yvonne a file from her briefcase that she took without looking away from Jack's face. When she looked down to find the right paper, Jack glared at the agent; the man was professionally dressed in a suit just like the ones Jones wore to work every day.

"Theft of alien technology, inappropriate use of alien technology, insubordination, inappropriate contact with a witness, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter on the part of Gwen Cooper. For Doctor Harper, two counts of misuse of Torchwood authority, insubordination, assault and battery, and conspiracy to commit murder. Toshiko Sato is also accused of conspiracy to commit, and you, Jack, are being charged with failure to enforce regulations, failure to discipline your employees and reckless endangerment."

Jack forced himself to sit quietly while Yvonne listed off crimes, but his nails caused cuts in his palms as he clenched his fists.

"I know," Yvonne continued. "You're the leader of an entire branch of Torchwood, and as," she looked around the Hub disdainfully, "non-vital as that branch may be to the entire organization, I would have to file with the Queen herself to charge you. Those charges are pending, Jack, depending on the results of this investigation," she finished.

Yvonne slid a file across the shining glass of the conference table and Jack picked it up, only needing to scan the front page briefly before he recognized it as his own Captain's Log.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, voice deadly soft.

"You sent it to us," Yvonne smiled widely. "One might almost think you were asking us to discipline your employees for you!"

Jack bit his lip to stop himself from shouting at her. Luckily for him, that was the moment when shouts were heard from the main Hub.

"What is going on down there?" Yvonne called to one of her agents as she and Jack rose and headed for the door.

[*]

Jack had told the three of them to wait in a small room near the archives until he called them up to meet the London agents. For a while they sat in silence, Gwen staring off distractedly, Owen playing some game of his cell phone and Tosh herself monitoring the Rift on her laptop. She was also playing with an algorithm to predict the appearance of Rift refugees to entertain her when she realized she needed a folder from her desk.

Tosh turned to her colleagues nervously. "Do you think I could fetch something from the Hub?"

Owen grunted. Gwen stared absently in the other direction.

Tosh closed her laptop and left it on the table as she returned to the Hub. Lost in the calculations in her mind, she failed to notice the presence in front of her desk until the tall figure spun around to face her.

"Oh!" she said in surprise. "May I help you with something?" she asked politely out of habit.

The Torchwood London agent leered at her. Tosh was immediately put on her guard. Normally, she wouldn't have trouble removing herself from the situation safely, especially on her own home territory, but she was afraid of causing a scene when they were already under investigation. She began to back away from the agent, glancing around the empty Hub in the hope that someone was paying attention..

"I was waiting for you, sweetheart," the man said lasciviously. He stepped forward, staring blatantly at her top.

Tosh's back hit her desk, but the taller man kept approaching. "I'm not interested," she said forcefully.

The agent grinned and put one hand on her desk behind her, trapping her against the piece of furniture. "I bet I could make you interested," he whispered, hot breath hitting the skin of her face. Tosh flinched away and the man's other hand reached for her.

"Get the fuck off her, dead man!"

[*]

Ianto rushed forward as Dr. Harper slammed his fist into the London agent's face. The medic packed a good punch, but Hudson was six feet tall and played amateur rugby before joining Torchwood, and he barely stumbled. The attack had the element of surprise, however, and Dr. Harper hit Hudson twice more before Ianto caught him around the chest and forced him to back away. Shay and Liz had shoved Hudson in the other direction and were staying between him and the Cardiff agents.

"What do you think you're doing?" The commanding voice of Yvonne Hartman at her most imperious cracked like a whip through the ears of the Torchwood agents. As one, all six Torchwood operatives looked up to see both Hartman and Captain Harkness on the walkway overlooking the Hub. The other two London agents were descending the twisting staircase to the main floor of the Hub in case further restraint was necessary.

"You agent assaulted Toshiko!" Dr. Harper accused, shaking a bruised hand in Hudson's direction.

The agent in question called up to his commander, his thick London accent made nasal from the injury to his nose. "That one attacked me without provocation. I was just havin' a conversation with the girl." He grinned, and Ianto had to held back Dr. Harper as he attempted to rush Hudson again, spitting obscenities under his breath. At that moment Ianto wouldn't have minded giving the egotistical Londoner a few hits of his own. Ianto remembered Hudson from London, where he hadn't taken no for an answer from a woman in Research and had managed to sweet-talk his way out of a suspension.

"Hudson!" Yvonne shouted, her voice echoing in the empty space above them. "You and MacArthur can go back to the hotel and stay there until I get around to dealing with you."

Despite looking like he wanted to murder someone, Hudson knew better than to disobey the empress of Torchwood. With a last glare toward Dr. Harper, he and another agent left the Hub through the cog wheel door.

Once the two had left, Dr. Harper shoved Ianto forcefully away from him. "That's right Teaboy, help out your London friends," he hissed. "You back-stabbin' git." He took a nervous-looking Tosh protectively by the waist and led her off the platform back toward the archives.

Ianto turned to Shay, who was watching with pity in his eyes. Liz, someone Ianto had known casually at One but not as a friend, was averting her gaze.

Ianto sighed and headed for the closet with the cleaning supplies, determined to get Hudson's blood off the grating at the very least.

[*]

Yvonne turned to Jack, looking slightly ruffled, as the figures below sorted themselves out.

"I am truly sorry about that Captain Harkness," she said, seeming to aim for some level of sincerity.

Jack would be more inclined to accept the apology if he believed Tosh's attacker would actually be punished. "Personally," he commented, ignoring her statement, "I would call that both failure to enforce regulations on an employee and assault, maybe even sexual assault."

Yvonne sighed. "I understand where you're coming from Jack, but this incident does not affect the charges levied-"

"The charges are a load of crap and you know it," Jack accused. "If you want, we can fight this out. You'll spend a couple hundred thousand pounds with lawyers and filing suits and petitioning the Queen, and you know we'll beat the charges with CCTV evidence and testimony of mental and emotional trauma.

"Or," he offered pointedly, waiting until Yvonne's eyes rose in curiosity and suspicion, "we can trade. I'll discipline my employees and you'll drop the charges against them, particularly the manslaughter. Honestly, Yvonne?" he asked, calling upon his old conning skills to sound wounded. "I'm sure you have footage of Ed Morgan's death. You must have seen there was nothing she could do."

Yvonne glanced away at the mention of the deceased, but her calculating expression was not lost. "Give us the quantum transducer and we'll call it even," she countered.

Jack felt a chill and nearly shivered. Who knew what Torchwood One would get up to with such a dangerous piece of technology? He pretended to consider the suggestion.

"I'll give you two sonic weapons," Jack decided. "Final offer." Jack knew that sonic technology was very highly valued by Torchwood One with their 'rebuild the Empire' creed; even the promise of blasters he'd reported to be beyond repair would be a hefty bargaining chip. What Yvonne didn't know was that the not even someone as smart as Tosh would be able to fix the weapons without technology that wouldn't be invented for another thousand years.

He knew he'd won when her eyes lit up at the mention of sonic technology, even if he had to wait while she pretended to think over his proposal before she accepted. "Fine."

They shook on it.


	15. Chapter 15

Yvonne called to Jones' friend, apparently named Shane, warning him to say his goodbyes. Jack practically snorted twice: at Yvonne's insistence on knowing all of her hundreds of employees by their first names, and then again at the obviousness of her maneuver. Jones had provided her with evidence against Torchwood Three, so she'd brought this 'Shane' all the way to Cardiff to see him as a reward.

At the Director's warning, Jones stood to talk quietly with his friend. Jack watched as the pair stood close together, talking quietly, then hugged for several long moments. When they released each other, a smile passed over Jones' face that Jack had never seen before. It intrigued him.

Giving Jones a last clasp on the forearm, the brunette turned and followed the other London agents' path through the cog door. Jack considered winking as Shane glanced up at him, just for his reputation's sake, but he was in such a bad mood that he couldn't be bothered with flirting.

Jack descended the staircase and ignored Jones on the platform as he headed for the archives.

[*]

"For God's sakes Gwen, I'm fine!" Toshiko complained.

Gwen stepped back from the other woman's seat, where she'd been trying to wrap her friend in a blanket. "I'm only trying to help," she defended. "Are you sure you don't need anything?"

"Yes, I'm positive. Thank you, but do you mind letting me work on my program now?"

Gwen nodded, backing away from the table, while Owen snickered in the background. Gwen sat down next to the medic on the one small couch in the cramped room. After a few seconds, Owen judged Tosh to be deep enough in her work for conversation.

"This is just how she copes, Cooper," he explained in a rare moment of sympathy. The effect was dampened somewhat by the chortles that kept trying to escape his wide mouth. "It's nothin' against you."

Gwen rolled her eyes.

A few minutes later, during which time Gwen valiantly resisted the urge to strangle her coworker, Jack came down from the Hub. Unsurprisingly, he made straight for Tosh. Gwen looked away to give them some privacy while they talked in low voices, but Owen watched, curiously and maybe even a bit worriedly, Gwen though.

Jack sat in the chair next to Toshiko's at the small table. "The charges have been dropped," he began.

"Oh thank God, how did you do it, Jack?" Gwen burst out, suddenly all smiles. She jumped up from the couch to give her leader a hug.

Jack returned the hug, but wasn't smiling when she sat back down. "The investigation was never serious. She knew there was no way they could actually convict us."

"Wait, I thought it was very serious!" Gwen protested. "After everything that's happened, they didn't even mean it?"

"She had no evidence," Jack explained. "They heaped on as many charges as they could to get our attention."

"So what was the motive?" Owen asked, following the line of reasoning. "What do they get out of this?"

"Well, on the one hand, I traded Yvonne some technology that she thinks she can adapt into weapons." At the looks on his team's faces Jack hurried to add, "Which she's wrong about! Give me a little credit, guys," he grinned as they all relaxed.

"Secondly, they made us look bad. The fact that Yvonne came down to prosecute Torchwood Three is going to be all over by now. UNIT, Downing Street, MI5, not to mention all our foreign contacts. Even NASA's gonna be wary of working with us if they think we're unstable, and those guys are the cowboys of the space programs!"

"We work with NASA?" Gwen muttered to Owen, who shushed her, then nodded.

"Third, she proved that she can come into our house, with warrants, any time she wants. She's trying to assert her dominance, and she's doing a pretty good job."

"So what can we do?" Gwen asked. "To avoid her, her political maneuvering," she said disgustedly.

Jack took a deep breath. "All we can do right now. Clean up our act; make sure we're above any criticism. Repair our relationships with our sister agencies, show them how professional we really are. We do our jobs," he declared, "and if we have any time after that we try and find out where the hell Yvonne's getting her information from."

"I thought you said it was Teaboy's doing?" Owen remembered.

Jack nodded. "He's definitely part of it, but she does have other methods. What we can stomp out, we should, but quietly."

"How did she find out about Ed Morgan, Jack? Why did they say I killed him?" Gwen pleaded, eyes wide.

"That was definitely Jones." Jack's eyes darkened. He pulled a rolled up file from his pants pocket and smoothed it out on the table. "These are two of the documents Jones sent to London as a part of his 'weekly incident report.'"

Jack indicated the first page. "This is my Captain's log. I write it after every major event, or anything I think requires particular documentation, and it is definitely not for anyone else's eyes but my own." He set the other paper next of the first. "This is Jones' own report of the case."

As Gwen read the two pages, she looked chastised, then pleased, then livid. "How did he know all that?" she cried.

"It sounds so much worse on paper," Tosh said quietly.

Jack nodded to the Japanese woman. "This seems to be where Yvonne got most of the ammunition for her warrant."

"That filthy bastard!" Gwen ran out of the room.

"Gwen, don't-" Jack called after her, then sighed. "I don't know why I bother," he said, then got up to follow the former copper at a walk.

Owen and Toshiko were left alone, staring at the incriminating documents on the table. "Was Jones right?" Tosh asked quietly. "I just assumed the vision cut out when you stopped describing it to us, but he seems to think you saw the entire attack." She glanced up at the medic sideways.

Owen was staring at the table. Eventually he answered. "It… sped up at the end. Like it knew it was shuttin' down. The- All the emotions, when he was... attackin' her, they all got, sort of crushed together and they all hit me at once, just as I was startin' to come out of it. It was like I felt her getting raped and havin' her throat cut, but all in just one second," he said quietly. His tightly pursed lips resembled a perverted sort of smile.

Tosh put her hand over his arm and squeezed gently. After a few moments, his other hand came up to cover it.

[*]

Ianto had already cleaned the desk and the medical bay and the other, more visible areas of the Hub in preparation for the visit from Torchwood One, but he remained in the Hub, finding something to do until Captain Harkness returned from the archives. He was anxious to discover the results of the meeting, how much trouble the team was in, if there was anything he could do.

Not that he expected them to want his help. Ianto wasn't even sure the captain would tell him anything, he'd probably have to hear the news from Yvonne, along with some saccharine message about how invaluable his services were to the continued prosperity of the British Empire. Ianto felt himself starting to get nauseous from the thought.

Ianto wasn't sure how to feel on that front. He honestly didn't know the cause of the investigation into Torchwood Three, or on Gwen in particular. Although he felt the quantum transducer case had been handled badly, as far as he could tell there wasn't anything that warranted interference from London.

While he was technically still under the employ of Torchwood One, as the liaison to Cardiff, Ianto found himself far more comfortable with and trusting of Captain Harkness' policies than with Yvonne Hartman's. The split loyalty made him unsure of his actions, but Ianto was willing to try and help Torchwood Three with their defense. He just didn't want to do break any laws, or his own moral codes, but until he knew what the situation was, he couldn't do anything at all.

But then, maybe someone would explain it to him, Ianto thought as he heard steps approaching from the archives. Quite  _fast_  footsteps, weren't they…

"You did this!" Gwen shouted as she burst into the Hub, hair flying behind her, eyes blazing. Ianto thought she looked nearly rabid; he backed away. "You told them I killed that poor man!"

"No, I-"

"Don't deny it,  _Jones_!" she exploded. "We saw that report you sent to London! You practically listed all our infractions for them!"

"I only summarized the case-"

"With the intent to make us all look bad!" Gwen accused. Ianto's eyes flicked nervously toward Owen's gun on his desk, only a few steps behind her. As he looked he also saw Captain Harkness, standing behind the desk near the entrance to the archives. The captain's arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes dared Ianto to defend himself.

"I trusted you, Ianto," Gwen pressed. "They all said you were going to betray us in the end, but  _I_  refused the believe it! I stood by you! And this is how you repay me!"

"Gwen, I swear I didn't-"

"Shut up!" Gwen yelled, cutting him off. There was silence for a few moments as she didn't speak. Her chest heaved, and her eyes stabbed Ianto like spears.

"I can't believe I ever considered you a friend," she said finally, voice shaking with contained rage. She stormed past him to the cog wheel door.

He stood on the platform, staring at the grating, pondering this new scar on what felt like the already bloody tissue of his heart. After collecting himself for at least the next few minutes until he could hopefully leave, Ianto forced himself to look up at where the captain had been standing.

He was gone.

[*]

When Ianto arrived at home, Connie wasn't there. He remembered her rotation required her to make a weekly delivery in Scotland today.

He called Shay. His phone was turned off.

He called his sister, but she answered too happily, saying she and Johnny were taking the kids to a theme park that was in town. He wished them a good time before hanging up.

He threw his phone at the wall. It made a chip in the plaster.

He took a shower, then made himself some soup from a can, too exhausted for anything else. He checked the time as he flicked on the telly. It was almost six in the evening.

After zoning out for an hour or two, Ianto climbed into bed.

He ended up turning over again and again, each time to avoid a new image that hovered behind his eyelids. Gwen's screaming face, Dr. Harper's accusing scowl, Toshiko's eyes, wide and frightened, as Hudson leaned over her. Captain Harkness staring him down, Yvonne's wide smile, Shay's look of shock.

When Ianto finally drifted off to sleep, it was remembering the burst of a thousand fireworks under his skin as he'd kissed his best friend.

[*]

"Jack?"

The immortal looked up from his computer screen, which he realized he hadn't been reading for several minutes. "What is it, Tosh?" He minimized his screen and focused all his attention on his tech.

Tosh sat slowly in the chair across his desk. Jack inspected her expression, relieved to see she looked thoughtful rather than… well, anything else.

"Is this about what happened earlier?"

Tosh looked at his face and seemed to realize what he was implying. "No Jack, I told you, I'm absolutely fine."

Jack nodded, but made a mental note to keep an eye on her anyway, just as he would have no matter what she said. "All right, what's up then?"

"I'm a bit confused by how quickly Yvonne Hartman dropped the suit," Tosh explained, forehead furrowed in thought. "She came all the way down here herself, and I read the list of charges, they were pretty serious. I know what you said about trying to humiliate us, but she could've pushed it a lot further without much effort. Why did she give up so easily?"

Jack bit his lip. He'd been thinking along the same lines; that was what had distracted him from his work. "I don't know," he admitted. "She must have gotten something else out of all this, but what?"

They sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking quietly. Eventually Jack sighed. "We'll keep our eyes peeled," he decided. "For now, just be glad that she didn't make us go through with the whole investigation."

Tosh was still worried, but she agreed. "All right. Good night Jack."

"Good night Tosh," Jack mirrored. He looked toward the cover in the floor that led to his dark, empty rooms. "Sleep tight," he whispered.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Captain's Log shown here was taken from the 'Ianto's Desktop' blog on livejournal, which was taken from the BBC website. I modified it from there for my canon, although not a lot. Ianto's report on the quantum transducer case was written by yours truly specifically for this story.

Ongoing Archive Notes

Torchwood 3

Volume 72, Week 36

Alien activity: Seventeen confirmed Weevil sightings.

Alien technology: Recovered a Quantum Transducer. This converts energy from excess human emotions during traumatic events, allowing glimpses of the past and/or future. Seems to compel people to operate it (much like the Resurrection Glove, though the effect is not quite as severe), and makes you experience the traumatic emotions of the event itself. Results too random to be helpful. Not to be used again. Sean "Bernie" Harris came into possession of the Quantum Transducer, and several other pieces of alien tech - all recovered. Once Harris has recovered from his injuries, standard amnesia protocol (Level Two) to follow.

Rift activity: Within acceptable levels and tolerances. Slight fluctuations, but all returned to normal soon after.

Security: Quantum Transducer taken out of Hub by Gwen Cooper, despite my instructions. Considering refresher course for all staff on the importance of security. Wonder if the threat of full searches when anyone leaves the premises may stop this. Owen Harper conducted his own investigation into a past crime shown by the Quantum Transducer, in direct violation of orders. However, I have taken into account the extreme impact of the device on his state of mind, and will not be disciplining him.

Other security issues: Edwin Morgan committed suicide during our investigation of his past crime - the murder of 17 year old Lizzie Lewis, on March 23, 1963 (as shown to Owen while operating the Quantum Transducer). Light cleanup to remove any trace of our involvement - but at Owen's insistence, we will arrange for "new" discovery of DNA evidence to prove that Morgan was Lewis' murderer. This will enable the police to close the case, and give the family closure.

Staff: Firearms training with Gwen Cooper went well. She proved to be extremely adept at handling and firing a weapon.

Capt. Jack Harkness.

[*]

Report Summary of Investigation into quantum transducer, confiscated from Sean 'Bernie' Harris (see 'Persons of Interest'). Compiled by Ianto Jones, Torchwood London Liaison Officer.

Torchwood Agent Third Class Gwen Elizabeth Cooper (heretofore 'Cooper') successfully retrieved Artifact Tr-Q-06-1445 (heretofore 'quantum transducer) from civilian Sean 'Bernie' Harris (heretofore 'Harris'), but was unable to apprehend suspect. Cooper used the device and had a vision of a young boy, later determined to be safely living in Butetown (See 'Thomas Erasmus Flanagan', Persons of Interest). In line with analysis of the device by Probationary Agent Toshiko Sato (heretofore 'Sato'), Cooper implied that she was compelled to use the device.

During investigation of the technology, which Sato determined to be a quantum transducer (see 'Recovered Artifacts'), Torchwood Agent First Class Doctor Owen Harper (heretofore 'Harper') was also compelled to use the device in what was intended to be a controlled experiment. Harper's vision was more concerning than Cooper's, as he apparently was forced by the device to feel the emotions of a young woman as she was raped and stabbed to death. Harper was shaken by the event, but continued to aid in the investigation.

The next day, Harper tracked down the home of the man he'd witnessed committing rape and murder and went to the man's house, apparently attempting to frighten the man, Edwin Morgan (See 'Persons of Interest' and 'Deceased'). When exiting Morgan's house Harper saw Harris and arrested him, contacting Cooper, Sato and Torchwood Three Head Agent Captain Jack Harkness (heretofore 'Harkness') and all five traveled to Harris' flat (proper containment and transport protocols in place) with his cooperation to retrieve other alien artifacts in the suspect's possession, including the second half of the quantum transducer (see 'Recovered Artifacts).

While at the residence of the suspect, Cooper again operated the quantum transducer.

At around eleven pm that evening, Harper informed Harkness of his actions regarding Morgan, causing Harkness to figure out that Harris had been blackmailing Morgan. Harkness and Harper travelled to Harris' residence, where Cooper was already located, having been visiting Harris (then qualified as a cooperating witness rather than a suspect) unofficially. While in transit, Sato discovered that Morgan was also travelling toward Harris' residence, on foot. She warned Harkness and Harper, who took up code three apprehension maneuvers.

Morgan approached Harris and Cooper in the street outside Harris' flat and threatened them with a knife. Cooper and Harris kept the suspect talking until Harkness and Harper restrained Morgan and took the weapon.

Harper then threatened Morgan using the suspect's own knife, but handed the weapon to Cooper. Harkness let go of Morgan in order to reprimand Harper. Morgan attacked Cooper, who was forced to stab Morgan (See 'Medical Records'). Harper attempted life-saving treatment, but Morgan died on-site.

Harkness and Harper transported the deceased to the Torchwood vehicle while Cooper comforted the witness, Harris, and checked the area for other witnesses. At headquarters, Sato began electronic clean-up of the incident while I prepared a body to be dumped in place of Morgan (See 'Clean-up').

Clean-up was continued the following day by Sato, Harkness and myself and was completed on Saturday. The quantum transducer was placed in secure storage by Harkness.

Personal notes: I have reason to believe, hearsay of course, but then so much at Torchwood is, that Ms. Sato knew that Dr. Harper had violent feelings toward the deceased, Edwin Morgan. However, she did not seem to believe anything would come of them.

I believe Ms. Cooper's infraction during this case, visiting a witness against orders, not to be particularly serious. Her presence there eventually saved the young man's life and her motivation was to help him overcome emotional trauma that he had sustained while under the influence of alien technology. She should have requested permission from her supervisor before contacting a witness, but I trust Captain Harkness to discuss the matter with her and ensure the issue will not arise again.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been nearly a week since I updated, work got real busy. But no worries, more is yet to come! Keep hitting that dial.

In the next few weeks, things changed rapidly.

What Ianto had gotten used to was a semi-friendly environment. Gwen had made an effort to reach out to him and, while the others didn't support the idea, they didn't actively move against him while the former copper was advocating on his behalf. Ianto was allowed to eat with them, they would occasionally act genially toward him and they generally let him get on with his job.

All that was over.

Gwen somehow managed to be meaner than any of Dr. Harper's barbs. Since she'd been his friend, she knew things about him, such as how he'd had to leave Lisa behind, how he was embarrassed about his Welsh accent that hadn't faded after years in London, that the suits he wore were so that he could still feel connected to the friends he'd left behind at One. All these things were turned around as sarcastic comments and jabs whenever an opportunity arose, giving the others the chance to laugh at him.

Dr. Harper seemed to find new ways every week to antagonize him. One week he sent Ianto to the archives a dozen times a day, requesting antiquated files, bulky artifacts and then telling him he'd gotten the wrong one and forcing him to go back.

While Toshiko wasn't very verbal in her revenge, Ianto found that his computer privileges were often much slower than they ought to be on the equipment available, and his archive coding was going slower than ever. Not, he realized, like it was being sabotaged, but as though some unknown force that had been helping him write it all along was suddenly vanished. It was worth some consideration, he'd thought, but somehow never had the opportunity.

All of them decided the time was right to pile work on him in droves, so Ianto's progress on the archives stuttered to a halt as he tried to keep up with the influx of extra paperwork. He got crash courses in computer programming, Retcon requisition, hiring civilian laborers through Torchwood shell companies and creating cover-stories. He was also given the questionable honor of sorting out Torchwood's budget, a duty that seemed designed to make him tear his hair out.

Dr. Harper took extreme delight in putting Ianto on body incineration, destroying the corpses of humans and aliens alike who'd been killed in the course of their work. Ianto tried to do this without touching the nauseating bodies, but practically always managed to get some sort of fluid or tissue on himself or his clothes.

He was also told to clean the SUV and keep it stocked with equipment for the team to use at a moment's notice. After making sure he knew how to handle the aliens kept in the Hub, Ianto was often called in the middle of the night when the team had captured a live alien so that he could put it in a proper cell.

He couldn't exactly report it to Captain Harkness, considering the pointed blind eye the man was turning. To be fair, the captain hadn't actively moved against him, which Ianto supposed was due to embarrassment or guilt. After a short, quiet conversation that was tense with anger during which the captain had questioned how his Captain's Log had made its way into the official report, Captain Harkness hadn't spoken a single word to him outside of everyday orders. Ianto guessed it was down to the discovery that at least some of the debacle that had occurred was not entirely the liaison's fault.

On the other hand, he wasn't about to report the almost cruel treatment to Yvonne. He'd considered it briefly after nearly having his head torn off by a Weevil whose sedation had worn off. But Ianto was by nature not a trouble-maker, nor a tattle-tale, but the kind of person who would buckle down and get the job done. Not to mention it would only be more ammunition against Torchwood Three, which would make his life even harder while he was here.

As much as Ianto took offense to the harassment, he kept a blank face and did his job. He hadn't felt so victimized since high school, but he tried to hang on to the few good things in his life and refused to sink into a depression. He made a few trips to London to visit his friends, even bringing Connie to meet them. She was being a great support, declaring that Ianto was an excellent friend and she wouldn't give up on him, even when he was acting 'all emo and fuckin' teary'. Ianto didn't know what he'd done to deserve such loyalty, but he was grateful every time she distracted him from his gloom.

He was spending much more time at work, trying to keep up with his actual duties as well as what the team was heaping upon him, but Ianto still found time to go to his sister's house at least once a week for family dinner. When he sat at the table with them and saw his sister's exhausted but happy face, he remembered why he was doing this at all. His increased paycheck as the liaison to Torchwood Three allowed her to stay home from working, and she was looking healthier every day.

In a fit of pique one day, when he was fed up with the awful treatment from his colleagues, Ianto made a decision. Even if they weren't treating him well, Ianto figured, he would still be the best general support a Torchwood team could possibly ask for; it was meant to be an in-your-face gesture, to say 'I'll still be professional and do my job even if the rest of you refuse to.' He quickly realized he enjoyed the strange satisfaction he got from filling a dozen small jobs that no one would recognize but which made the team's lives easier. He began bringing them biscuits with their coffee at tea time when they were all at their desks working. He completely took over feeding Myfanwy, the Weevils and the assorted aliens that were usually kept in the Hub at any one time. He tried to anticipate their needs, ordering meals before anyone asked, stocking the Hub kitchen with everyone's favorite snacks and keeping a table near the front of the archives with documents and artifacts that related to their current projects. Somehow, he managed to insinuate himself as a tailor, and took all the clothes that were damaged during missions and fixing stains and tears to the best of his ability, or bringing them to specialized shops when the job was too big for him.

It was strange, but somehow, the look of disgust on Gwen's face when she nearly bowled him over walking blindly across the Hub was countered by the look of pleased surprise when she found her favorite chocolate mysteriously appearing in her desk.

After a month or so, the actual attempts of the team to make life harder for him petered down to a more general feeling of hatred and they stopped actively forcing extra work upon him. Still, a good portion of the duties he'd taken on remained his, including ordering supplies for Flat Holm Island.

Ianto was certain that Dr. Harper had not intended to bring him in on the secret, but the requisition forms for medical supplies were in one of the piles of paperwork the medic had shoved into his chest one afternoon. He looked up the account which contained the money for the supplies and followed a few trails until he reached the Island's file, which he read with rapidly widening eyes. Despite knowing that this was something Yvonne would go crazy to find out about, Ianto didn't report the existence of the hospital. It was only partially out of a feeling of loyalty to Torchwood Three, but mainly because Ianto could imagine what would happen to the occupants of Flat Holm if Yvonne ever got her hands on them, and he didn't need the nightmares that would come if that happened.

Still, he had his projects. Ianto began to make progress on the archives again. What had seemed before to be a spectacular challenge had lost all its shine and was now little more than a monotonous filing job, but it was one Ianto continued because he had, after all, supposedly been hired as an archivist.

He also opened the tourist office. It was more out of a need to escape from the dusty, tomb-like basements of Torchwood Three, which had begun to remind him of London's archives in their absolutely silent qualities. The sunlight that occasionally seeped in and even the rain and fresh air were marvels to Ianto, and he took to opening the little shack up for actual business in the afternoons. The few folks who trickled in were usually kind and gave him some human contact which he'd been so desperately lacking.

He held onto hope that, eventually, he might manage to endear himself to his colleagues, whom he had somehow come to respect and even like from afar.

[*]

"Jack?" Tosh asked from the doorway to his boss' office. When he looked up from his files she showed him a thick, faded hardcover. "Did you leave this on my desk?"

Jack squinted at the barely visible ink. "No, not me. What is it?"

Tosh stepped into the room and handed him the book carefully. "It's a copy of a textbook I used when I was a little girl," she explained as Jack thumbed through the pages. "My first computer textbook. I mentioned it at lunch a few weeks ago?" she prompted.

Jack shook his head, closing the book and holding it out to her. "No idea."

Tosh took the book confusedly. As she left the office she nearly ran into Owen, returning to his desk. "Did you leave this?" she blurted, holding the book up.

Owen scanned the title. "What would I want with a computer science for beginners?" he asked with a scowl, stepping around her to sit at his workstation.

Tosh stood puzzled for a moment, then walked off the platform and around to Gwen's desk, where she was taking a call. The Welshwoman motioned for her to stay where she was.

After a last minute of negotiating, Gwen hung up. "City Council can never solve anything without hagglin'," she complained in a conversational manner. "What were you wantin' Tosh?"

Tosh showed her the textbook. "Did you leave this on my desk?"

Gwen took the book curiously. "No, I didn't, what is it?" She looked at the design on the front, then at the back, then checked the spine.

"It's a copy of my first computer textbook. I told you guys about it at lunch last Thursday," she explained again, becoming more confused by the second.

Gwen gave her an embarrassed smile. "Sorry pet, all that stuff tends to go right over my head." She handed the book back to Tosh's unmoving hands. "Was there another thing you wanted to talk about?"

"Um… no."

Tosh returned to her desk and stared at the book, which she'd been trying to find for years, ever since she'd lost it when her family moved house. She tapped her fingers against her desk in consternation until she had a brain blast.

Jones?

She threw on her headphones and dove into the CCTV database, quickly pulling up the feed of the conference room the day she'd mentioned the textbook. Fast-forward until Jones arrived, and-

"… _my very first computer textbook, which I know might not mean a lot to you, but it's something quite memorable for me, and I really just wish I could find a copy, but they're out of print, and I lost mine as a child when we moved to Surrey. I really liked it because the language it used was so innovative, especially for the time, and you can even still find it in use today, it's-"_

" _Tosh, will you talk about something interesting for a change?"_

Tosh sat back in her seat. There, just as Owen had interrupted and she'd sat back in her chair, chastised like a little girl, Jones had looked up from the lunch order and thrown a glare at the medic. Then he'd looked at her and nodded slightly, just once.

Still confused, she pulled up the CCTV on the main Hub, starting at the present time and rewinding. Sure enough, when the team had been called out earlier to a Hoix attack, Jones had put the book on her desk on his way from the archives to the tourist office.

After a few moments of contemplation, she closed the CCTV window, grabbed the book and copied the suited man's path through the cog wheel door.

[*]

A light turned on below the counter and Ianto finished up his conversation with Ms. O'Leary, a middle-aged woman who'd gotten lost on her way to the farmer's market. Once she left the office, he depressed the button to lock the office door, then opened the door to the Hub.

Toshiko was standing there, holding the textbook to her chest. Ianto pursed his lips, hoping she wasn't going to confront him about it. "Is there something you need, Toshiko?"

She stepped into the office, almost warily, as if she were afraid something was going to bite her ankles. "Did you leave this on my desk?" she asked, holding up the book.

Ianto nodded, looking back at his screen for a few moments to save his document.

"Why?"

"You said you'd been looking for it for quite a while. I have a friend who owns an antique book store, I asked him to keep an eye out and he happened to have a copy for sale. It was a lucky break, actually."

"I mean, why did you get it for me?" Toshiko clarified, stepping a bit closer to the desk. "It's not my birthday or anything."

Ianto looked at her. "I understood what you meant, about it being important to you. I still keep my first pair of rugby shoes."

"That's not exactly the same," she pointed out.

Ianto shrugged.

"Well… thank you."

Ianto nodded. "You're welcome. Was there anything else?"

She shook her head slowly, then left.


	18. Chapter 18

The door of the Tourist Office opened with a click. Ianto looked up from his computer screen, which was playing CCTV from Janet's cell. She'd looked a bit sluggish when he'd fed her that morning and Ianto was concerned she might be coming down with something. He minimized the screen to protect it from the unsuspecting public before looking up.

"Delivery!" Connie called in a rather annoying sing-song voice. "I've got packages!"

"Aren't you meant to use the mail slot?" Ianto commented. "It's got bio-containment, radiation containment, psychic emanation containment, it's fitted against eight types of non-terrestrial explosives-"

"I get it, I get it, Torchwood has all the shiny tech," Connie laughed. "This is my last delivery today, I'm free!" She set Torchwood's packages on the counter gently, then walked around it. "Gimme some sugar," she grinned.

Ianto backed away, reached behind him to the mini-cafetiere set and deftly produced a small container of sugar. He offered it to Connie, face completely blank.

She snorted. "Funny, but that's not what I meant." Tossing the sugar on the counter (thank goodness it was closed) she dragged Ianto to her by his coat sleeve. He didn't put up much resistance, but leaned against her on the counter as they kissed.

After a few moments, during which Ianto remembered quite vividly that Connie hadn't been in town for nearly two weeks, she pulled back from the rather heavy snog.

"When do you get off?" she asked, breath somewhat labored.

Ianto grinned. "That depends on what time my shift ends."

Connie giggled. "That was awful," she shook her head.

"You don't mind, really."

Slowly, she wrapped his dark blue tie around her hand, pulling him closer until their breath was mingling. Ianto closed the last centimeter and met her grinning lips.

The door to the Hub swung open.

Ianto jumped back from Connie like he'd been burned. Luckily, she managed to unwrap his tie from her hand before he inadvertently choked himself. Looking to the door, he froze when he saw Toshiko standing in the doorway, staring back at him.

Connie recovered quickly, stepping out from behind the counter and approaching the tech expert. "Hi, I'm Connie March, courier for UNIT," she offered her hand.

Toshiko shook it, though Ianto noticed her miniscule flinch when UNIT was mentioned. "Toshiko Sato." Her gaze slid past Connie to Ianto, almost glaring as always when looking at him. "Jones, Jack wants you in the conference room."

Ianto was at the right angle to see Connie's face and smothered a groan as her eyebrows rose. "I'm sure  _Ianto_  would be right down to the conference room if you asked him nicely," she said pointedly.

"Connie, don't," he muttered. It had the opposite of the intended effect.

She turned to face him, planting one hand on her hip. "Don't tell me not to talk. Maybe if she were more respectful to her colleague I wouldn't have to say anything."

Ianto didn't think he'd ever blushed harder in his life. "I think you should leave."

Her eyes blazed at him, but after a moment, Connie turned back to Toshiko. "It was a pleasure to meet you," she said, dangerously polite. Toshiko's face was mostly expressionless, but her eyes were just a bit wider. She nodded, and Connie left without looking back. The door slammed behind her,

After a moment of silence, Toshiko cleared her throat. "Conference room… Ianto?"

Before he could look up, she was already gone.

[*]

When Ianto arrived at his flat a few hours later, he was surprised to find Connie there, watching a movie full of explosions on cable. "What are you doing here?"

She looked up defensively. "I always stay here when I'm in Cardiff."

"I know, I just thought you wouldn't want to stay tonight. You seemed rather angry earlier."

"I wasn't really mad  _at_  you," she said apologetically. "I was angry  _for_  you. I can't  _believe_  you just  _let_  them treat you like that!" Realizing her voice had risen, she flicked her hair back self-consciously. "Okay, so maybe I was just a hint mad at you, too," she said sheepishly. Scooting over on the couch and shrugging was her way of saying the argument was over.

Ianto smiled, relaxing, and took of his coat and hung it on its hook. Toeing off his shoes, he plopped next to Connie on the couch. "It's not a matter of letting them, that's just how they're going to act," he reasoned.

"But if you never do anything, it's never going to change!" Connie insisted.

"Do what?" he asked, a bit of exasperation creeping into his tone. This was not the first time they'd had this conversation, but it was the first time Connie had met a member of the team besides Captain Harkness.

"You have to-" she stopped as a tractor exploded on the screen and muted the television. "You have to stick up for yourself. Say something, tell them you're not going to let them treat you that way. She was ordering you around, Yan, is she even your superior?"

Ianto tilted his head; he hadn't actually considered this. "She's been at Torchwood nearly four years, and I signed on with London in May of… that's more than four years ago," he realized.

"There you are," Connie said matter-of-factly.

"But that doesn't matter, not in Cardiff," Ianto explained. "Captain Harkness is the Head, but Gwen's the second-in-command even though she was only here a few months before me. They don't go by seniority, just ability."

"Are you any less able, any less of an outstanding Torchwood agent than the others?" Connie challenged.

"I make the coffee and file paperwork," Ianto sighed.

"Paperwork makes the world go 'round, you told me that!" she crowed.

"I was drunk."

"It still stands."

"I can't just… talk to them like that, tell them… I don't even know what I would tell them."

"Tell them you want to be treated as an equal!" Connie urged. "That you're not just the secretary they can push around!"

"That's not  _me_ , though," Ianto told her. "Look, I'm friendly, I get on with people. But I'm not confrontational. I'm not… I don't do things like that."

Connie worried her lip, but then nodded. "I can see that," she admitted slowly. "But what are you going to do, then? You can't just leave things as they have been."

"I'm just going to be myself," Ianto answered." Eventually, they'll see that I'm not the enemy."

Connie scrutinized him for a few moments. Then: "That's a shite plan, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," he acknowledged immediately. "They're way too stubborn for that."

"As long as you know."

They stared at each other.

"…Coffee?"

"God yes."

[*]

Tosh sipped half-heartedly at her lager, eyes sweeping tiredly over the pool hall. From the corner booth that she, her line of sight covered most of the huge room, full-to-bursting of people enjoying their games. She didn't see any of it, however, caught up in her thoughts.

This was  _meant_  to be a date. Her tentative attempt to ask Owen out had been a long time coming, but Gwen had overheard and assumed that she was organizing a tournament, instead of a date, so she was forced to organize this evening out to maintain cover. Now that she was here, though, she couldn't bring herself to care and had gotten out in the first round.

It was so stupid, Tosh sighed, that she couldn't just ask him out. Why was it so hard? She'd only fancied him for three years.

She was startled by a shift in the weight of her seat. Looking over, she gave Rhys a small smile. "You out too?"

He nodded, grinning. "I'm rubbish at this, me. Can't hit the balls straight to save my life." He squinted at her. "You look a bit blue."

Tosh shook her head, trying to dredge up a convincing smile this time. "I'm just tired. Work's been hard lately."

"All these mysterious cases," Rhys rolled his eyes. "Bloody exasperatin' it is. I get it, thought, I'm not askin'!" he qualified at her worried expression. "I know you can't tell me."

"I am sorry," she said honestly. Tosh couldn't imagine what it must be like for Rhys, to know his girlfriend was in danger every day but not know anything about who she was fighting.

"Nah," Rhys shook his head. "Tonight's meant to be relaxin', eh?" He lounged back into the corner of the booth and gazed out over the room. Then he sat up straight. "Hey, that's Ianto!"

Tosh followed his gaze. It was Jones, at a table on the other side of the hall. He was lining up a shot into a corner pocket while a small crowd looked on. They were at the wrong angle to see the shot, but from Jones' grin as he stood Tosh guessed he'd made it. The mixed reaction of the crowd, ranging from ecstatic to melancholy and the bills being exchanged between the onlookers suggested it had been a good, close game.

Rhys stood up. Tosh was surprised to see him frowning heavily. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind, that's what. Gwen said he was the one responsible for you four gettin' investigated, he sold you out!"

"Wait!" Tosh called. Rhys stopped a few steps from the table. "You can't!"

"And why not?" Rhys questioned, beginning to look quite angry. "My girlfriend was in  _tears_  because of what he did! She was nothing' but friendly, and I've got some things I want to say to him!"

Tosh jumped up and grabbed his arm. She knew there was no way she could actually  _stop_  him if he was determined to go, but maybe she could convince him.

"This isn't the time or the place!" she insisted. Rhys wasn't looking at her, still glaring daggers across the hall at Jones. "You said yourself, Rhys, tonight's supposed to be about relaxing! If you do this, you'll probably start a fight, and we'll all be kicked out. And I  _really_  need a night without that, please Rhys!"

She hadn't realized just how much her issues with Owen had gotten her down, because suddenly tears were all too close to the surface. What she'd meant as an argument to convince Rhys not to confront Jones in public was more true than she'd known.

Rhys looked down at her. He considered for a long moment. "All right then," he said eventually. "But it's for your sake, not his!" He jabbed a finger angrily in Jones' direction.

"I know," she said, slumping back into her seat. She noticed her drink was nearly empty. "Could you get me a refill, please?"

Rhys muttered his assent and took her empty glass. She looked up from the dark, sticky table when he patted her hand. "Whatever it is that's got you down. I know I'm not Torchwood, but maybe that's what you need? Someone to talk to who's not in the thick of it?" He gave her a sympathetic look. "Think about it." He headed off toward the bar.

Tosh blinked wearily at the table. Dragging her eyes up to watch the room again, her gaze caught on Jones.

It was almost funny, she thought, how different he looked. Instead of the formal, complimentary suits he wore to work every day, Jones was dressed in jeans and a rugby shirt not unlike the one Rhys was wearing. His hair was casually styled and he was toasting with several men around one of the standing tables. The group tried to chug their lagers. Tosh watched Jones laughing as one of his friends choked, slapping him on the back.

He looked normal. Like any of the other people in the pool hall. Untouched by Torchwood, by the things they saw every day. He looked like he wasn't keeping secrets from anyone.

He looked happy.


	19. Chapter 19

It was an unfortunate oversight, but luckily, not a dangerous one in the end. The only affect, in the end, was a slight loss of dignity. In fact, one could even say the whole situation changed things for the better.

If only it hadn't been so primally horrifying at the time.

"Jones!" Captain Harkness shouted from his office. Ianto had just silently placed the file Toshiko had requested from the archives on her desk and was making his way back to the tourist office, but he stopped and turned to face the captain.

Captain Harkness had one hand covering the speaking part of his desk phone, and the look on his face suggested that whatever official was on the other end was probably currently wishing he'd never been born. "Pizza!" he barked to Ianto, before continuing his berating of the poor soul on the other end of the call.

Ianto gave a single nod that was not noticed, and continued to the tourist office.

It just fit perfectly into his week that he didn't notice the change until he was speaking to the pizza shop.

"Jubilee's, how can I help you?"

"Puedo tener dos pizzas grandes, mucha carne en el primer y vegetables en el segundo, ¿por favor?" Ianto spouted off the team's usual order without thinking.

"What? Uh, sorry, can you speak in English, please?"

Ianto frowned at the receiver. " _Estoy_  hablando en ingles," he said, mentally cursing today's teenagers. Why did the kid think he wasn't speaking Enlgish?

"Uhh… I'm sorry; I don't know what you're saying."

"Llamaré luego, gracias," Ianto hung up, promising to call back even though it appeared that the message wouldn't be understood. Once he actually listened to what he was saying, he panicked. Even though he was thinking in English, the words coming out of his mouth definitely were not.

Forcing himself to keep calm, he took a few deep breaths and descended back into the Hub.

Toshiko wasn't at her desk, so he stood in the doorway to Captain Harkness' office until the man looked up with annoyance. "What?" he said bluntly.

"Parece que ya no puedo hablar en ingles." Maybe the captain could understand?

The other man blinked. Then he covered the mouthpiece of the phone. "Say that again?"

"Solo puedo hablar en español," he repeated. "Ni siquiera puedo decir palabras en gales." Not that he was very fluent in Welsh, but not being able to speak even the little he knew was almost as scary as losing his first language.

Captain Harkness stared at him for several moments, then spoke into the pone. "I'll call you back, General." Then he hung up on the protests streaming from the line.

"This better not be a prank," he warned, coming out from behind his desk and leaving the office. Ianto trailed after him silently, afraid to speak and hear his lack of control over what sounds were leaving his mouth.

"Tosh!" The captain called. When he received no response, he looked around irritatedly. "Owen! Where's Tosh?"

The medic ascended from the autopsy bay. "The girls are on a Weevil run. What's got you in a piss-fest?" he scowled.

The captain's eyes raised in what almost looked like humor. He gestured to Ianto. "Care to share, Jones?" he asked imperiously, eyes glaring a challenge.

Ianto cleared his throat. "No puedo hablar en ingles," he explained quietly.

Doctor Harper's face was a picture. For a moment he just stared, then he started to chuckle. Ianto felt himself blush deeply, and Doctor Harper began laughing in earnest. By the time Ianto cleared his throat again and moved to clean off the coffee table, the medic was howling.

"'e's speaking Spanish!' Doctor Harper choked out, clutching his stomach. "Not some alien language or anything, he's speaking  _Spanish_!"

"No veo por que esto es gracioso," Ianto said, beginning to get a bit annoyed. For the first time, he was grateful that the others couldn't understand him, and he considered taking the opportunity to get everything off his chest while they wouldn't know what he was saying.

Bu the moment was gone. Captain Harkness was smirking as he motioned Ianto over to the medical bay. "Let's see what we can find out," he ordered. Ianto followed the instructions, taking advantage of his frustration to stifle the honest fear of not being able to speak any language he actually knew.

By the time Toshiko and Gwen returned with a Weevil in tow, Doctor Harper (still chortling every few minutes, but continuing to work under the watchful eye of Captain Harkness) had determined that Ianto had not had any sort of stroke, seizure or reaction to medication, nor was he under the influence of any known terrestrial or extra-terrestrial psychotropics. Not even, as Doctor Harper put it, 'any of the cool ones.'

"Is it time for our annual check-ups already?" Toshiko asked when she noticed the captain looking down on Ianto and Doctor Harper in the medical bay.

"Teaboy's got himself some sort of language problem," the doctor announced, teeth showing like a shark as he grinned. "Go on, show 'em."

Ianto rolled his eyes, but spoke to Owen. "Alguien deberia poner un huron en los pantalones."

Toshiko gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth, and the team looked at her in surprise. "I, I speak Spanish," she admitted.

She and Ianto blushed at the same time.

"Great!" Captain Harkness nodded officiously. "Tosh, you try to figure this out. Everyone else, back to work. I don't want any more time wasted today."

With that he turned and strode into his office.

"Great job Jones, you've got him in a bad mood again," said Gwen sarcastically, leaving for her own desk.

"If you don't mind, I've got work," Doctor Harper motioned pointedly. Ianto slipped off the Autopsy bench, looking at the ground. He hurried up the steps to Toshiko's desk, where she was already pulling up files.

"Let's get a few things straight, first of all," she began, indicating that he should pull up a chair. He dragged Doctor Harper's over to her workstation and sat down.

Toshiko must have seen something in his face, because her calculating expression softened slightly. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to. I can imagine this would be a bit stressful."

Ianto smiled gratefully, even if he was confused. This wasn't the first time Toshiko had done something or said something nice to him in the week and a half since Connie had told her off in the Tourist Office, and he was starting to think her idea of standing up for himself might have some merit. For now, though, he forced himself into the present as Toshiko's questioning began.

"Have you ever spoken Spanish before?"

Ianto shook his head.

"Ever watched Spanish television or movies?"

He held up his hand, indicating a very small amount with his finger and thumb.

"Puede comprenderme?"

Ianto nodded, surprised that he understand what she was asking despite having no idea what the individual words meant. He said this aloud, trying not to listen to the odd procession of rolling r's and hard letters that sounded like a jumbled mess to him, but that the computer specialist seemed to understand perfectly.

"That's interesting," Toshiko murmured to herself, twiddling with her reading glasses for a moment as she thought. Then she pulled up the main screen of Ianto's digital archive. "Well, let's start by searching for any artifacts that might have effects like this. Maybe you came across it this morning and were affected without your knowledge. Or maybe it was a while ago and took this long to show symptoms."

As she conjectured, Toshiko was filling in the search boxes for a search of the digital archives. "How much of the archives have you uploaded onto here so far?" she asked.

"Cerca de ochenta por ciento," he replied quietly. The sensation of his mouth forming sounds he didn't tell it to or even recognize was very disconcerting. He made himself take a deep breath.

"Is this everything?" Toshiko indicated the list of symptoms she'd typed into the search bar. He shook his head and reached to the keyboard to type in that he had been unaware of the change even as he'd spoken another language.

_No supe que estaba hablando-_

He tore his hands away from the keyboard and clenched them in his lap forcefully. He stared down at them, hating that he couldn't even control his own hands, and bit his lip hard to control his breathing, which had sped up: further evidence of his lack of control.

"You gonna cry on us? Fuck's sake, you'd think his precious archives were burning rather than a simple communications issue."

Ianto screwed his eyes shut against the medic's words, then gritted his teeth together as Gwen joined in.

"Probably just realized he won't be able to work for Torchwood anymore," she answered, raising her voice so he could hear it across the platform. "You can't rat someone out if no one can understand you."

"Ianto," Toshiko called. He looked up in surprise, blinking away the shimmering of his eyes. She glanced at her two colleagues nervously before continuing. "Ignoralos. Ve aqui."

Unsure, he raised his head, but stared at the screen. He nearly jumped when she took his hand.

"Lo siento que esto le haya occurido a usted," she murmured. "Estas bien?"

He nodded silently, unwilling to admit weakness, even in the face of her strange kindness.

Toshiko sighed. "Well, I've put the new symptom in the search. You go through the results, and I'll look at the artifacts you filed this morning or that we haven't looked at yet." She glanced around again, seeing Gwen and Doctor Harper within earshot. "Estara bien mientras estoy fuera?"

Ianto nodded, catching her hand before she left. "Gracias," he whispered.

She tried to smile, managing a short upturn of the lips, before taking back her hand and walking away.

[*]

Ianto's head spun. There were only twelve possible matches in the entire archive, on the loosest settings the search allowed. None of them fit the parameters exactly.

He glanced around the Hub, filled with the sounds of Doctor Harper's tinkering in the medical bay and Gwen's quiet discussion on her phone. Captain Harkness had not left his office, only looking up to glare at Ianto when he'd entered with coffee.

He was almost willing to risk entering the lion's den again just to beg for help. His unoccupied mind was flying through horrible scenarios: never being able to speak to his sister again, or her children. Shane and Connie, who were so kind to him as he struggled to acclimate to his new job, getting bored talking to someone who couldn't talk back and leaving him. Or, worst of all, Gwen being right: London might find out what had happened, and Yvonne would insist on having him Retconned. He would lose all his memories of his amazing friends in Torchwood London, all the out-of-this-world discoveries he'd made in the archives, he'd forget Shane, and he'd forget Captain Harkness.

Not that the last one was important.

Right?

"I think I've got it!" Toshiko called as she rushed up from the archives. Her steps were slightly impeded by her low black heels, which she never wore on missions but enjoyed in the Hub.

She placed in front of Ianto on the workstation what looked like a handheld video game player in a sort of chrome green color. Its screen was on, but the backlighting was so dark that it appeared to be off. Toshiko slowly slid her finger along one edge and the screen lit up until they could read what it said.

There was a list of languages on the screen, arranged, Ianto thought, like a list of songs on an iPod sort of touch screen. He found it amusing to think of aliens using Apple products.

Between 'English' and 'Esperanto,' 'Espanol' was highlighted.

"We're lucky it's in Arabic letters mode," Toshiko commented, making the touch screen scroll down to show off more of its list. At the top were several options which did seem to switch lettering systems. Ianto thought he recognized hieroglyphs and kanji, but he stopped himself from asking about them.

"Puede arreglarme?" he asked, trying to keep any begging quality out of his voice.

"Yep!" Toshiko smiled. "There's an off button. Just poke the screen, right there." She indicated a small blue button, and Ianto pressed it.

"Better?" she asked expectantly.

"I hope so," Ianto answered, then grinned. "Thank you so much, Toshiko."

She preened a little, shaking her head. "It was simple enough. It was in the group that came through over the last week, one of us probably nudged it on, then you set it to Spanish by accident. And now, I know how it works. It looks like there's a whole host of alien languages on here, not to mention future dialects of terrestrial languages. I can't wait to see what sort of identification coding they have for the translation, and there must be some huge amount of memory to store it all, not to mention the mind-control itself, plus-"

"Okay Tosh." Captain Harkness's grinning voice made Ianto jump, but the other man was looking at Toshiko when he turned around. "You can start working on this as soon as you give me the preliminaries on that weather report. And good job," he told her, winking.

Ianto had stood up to return to work, but he stopped as a warm touch pressed down on his shoulder. "Sir?"

"I think you've had enough excitement for today, Jones," Captain Harkness said. "Take the rest of the day off, it's already three."

"Yes sir, thank you sir." The hand slid off his shoulder as the captain nodded and returned to his office. Ianto quickly left the Hub, ignoring even looking toward Gwen and Owen, talking quietly at her desk, and didn't even breath until he reached the elevator.

There he slumped against the wall and tried to calm his cart-wheeling stomach. He rubbed his own hand from his neck to his upper arm, trying to dispel the memory of the touch and blue eyes gazing into his. He gave himself a light slap on the forehead.

"This isn't right," he told himself. "Stop it."

The lift reached the ground floor and he stepped out. In the Tourist Office, he picked up his jacket and took out his mobile.

"Connie? You free for a coffee? I really need to talk."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey'all, sorry this was all late and stuff. I got sick, and I suck as a sick person, then I was traveling, and then the computer I've been using broke. I'm back at my local library now, hopefully with consistent updates. Just as it starts getting good, too!

Jack looked inconspicuously through his office window at his team going about their business in the Hub. More specifically, he watched Toshiko and Jones trying to find a cure for the London agent's condition.

Jack didn't even know where to start thinking about Jones. Still present was his grief for Suzie, however much he hid it from the others. Jones' presence here made it hard to forget, especially when Jack had to be careful not to let anything slip in the man's vicinity, lest it make its way to London. It was simple to hate Jones simply because he was so proper, organized and correct, exemplifying the sort of automatic soldiers London produced by the cartful. Before the investigation, Jack had found it far too easy to stuff Jones into that box and forget about him.

Since then, though, it was becoming increasingly more difficult. The stubborn light in the younger man's eyes during their last conversation refused to leave Jack's head.

…

" _One of the documents in Yvonne's possession was my private week-to-week activities log," Jack had said. He had stared hard across the desk, looking for any sign that Jones' calm mask was breaking down._

_But it hadn't. "I'm sure I have no idea how she came to possess it, sir, but if I did send it to her I was not aware of it at the time."_

_Jones had just sat there, straight-backed, and held the eye contact. Jack was almost thrown for a moment, thinking he saw something like betrayal flicker across the pale face before it was gone. "I never look through any of the reports you send to me on London's behalf: it would be a breach of privacy, sir."_

_Jack had just barely stopped himself from letting a surprised look slip through. For some reason, he'd unconsciously assumed that Jones read everything before he sent it, just like a spy. Studying Jones' expression, Jack decided to believe him- for now. If necessary, he'd ask Tosh to take a look at his server and find out how else the Log could've been accessed._

" _Fine, Jones, you're dismissed."_

_Jones had remained in the chair for a moment, seeming surprised to have been let go, then he rose and left, suit jacket splaying open from the movement as he walked away._

…

Barely a few minutes later, Jack had been shocked to discover that it had been his own account that saved the fateful Log in the shared folder for London. He guessed he must have put it in the wrong file as he drifted off from exhaustion after Ed Morgan's death.

He felt like he'd been kicked in the chest.  _He_  had been the one who'd almost gotten Gwen charged for manslaughter, who'd probably left marks for insubordination on hers and Owen's records.

Jones had never opened the document.

Since then, he hadn't even been able to look in Jones' direction without remembering his distraught, helpless face while Gwen tore him up on the platform.

Jack knew he was a master at guilt-tripping himself, he'd definitely had enough time to nurture the habit. Right now, Jones' face was pale and his eyes were wide and he moved hesitantly, as if afraid that some other change would happen that would leave him unable to control his body, either, and Jack almost,  _almost_ , went out to comfort him.

But he held back. As much as he may have wanted to be out on the platform , Jack knew there were more important things than bowing to his own whims.

No matter how much Jones looked like he could use a friend right now.

[*]

"I just don't know what to think," Ianto finished in a near whisper. He stared at his drink, sure that if he looked up he would encounter a disgusted or overwhelmed expression.

After nearly a minute of silence, he chanced a peek and discovered Connie smiling softly at him. "What?"

"I'm not mad at you," she said like he was being an idiot. "We agreed when we started this, we're not exclusive. If you want, I'll tell you about a business man up in Glasgow I want to shag."

"That's not the point!" Ianto said exasperatedly. "I just told you I've-" he dropped his voice down, "got a crush on my very  _male_  boss, and I kissed my very  _male_ best friend."

"It's not a huge deal," she shrugged. "I know lots of blokes who like other blokes. True, I'm not shaggin' them, but-"

"Could you be serious,  _please_!"

Connie turned her gray eyes on him. "Seriously, Yan, it's  _not_  a big deal, I swear. Look," she said, "lemme get a refill and we can talk a bit more, okay? I think this conversation's gonna need more caffeine."

She got up from their outdoor table at the café near Ianto's flat and headed inside. Ianto let out a huge sigh, resting his back against the wall of the café. He looked around. It was a rather windy day and it looked like it was going to rain soon, so they were the only ones sitting outside to drink. He'd chosen this table specifically for the privacy, but he still checked the street to make sure there weren't many people around.

Connie returned and caught him scanning the area. "God, honestly?"

He looked at the table a little mulishly. "I'm not… trying to make an issue out of this, I just… Connie, I don't want to be… a poof." He couldn't look her in the eye as he muttered the word derogatively.

"Hey, I know you wouldn't say that sort of thing around Shay, so don't say it around me either," she said harshly. He colored.

"But… I've been with girls, I've always been with girls, and… I just can't understand why this is happening to me right now!" He hit the wall of the café with one tight fist.

Connie gasped. "Yan, don't!" She grabbed his arm and held his wrist, bringing both their hands to the table. She stared at him with wide, concerned eyes for a few moments, then took a deep breath. "You said you've known Shane for years."

Ianto nodded. "Since I started work at Torchwood One. We met at a tutorial for the computer systems. We were sat next to each other and we had to take the course again 'cause we didn't stop laughing at all the first time through." He smiled at the memories.

Connie watched the expression grow. "And do you think that you were attracted to him then?"

Ianto's shoulders tightened noticeably. "I don't- no, I don't think so. I don't  _know_!" he said, suddenly distressed. "That's part of it! I  _know_  I liked him, we were best mates instantly. But I don't know if I liked him _that_ way right then, or later, or when! How am I supposed to tell, Connie?"

She held his hand, just letting him rant as she looked on sympathetically. "I don't know," she admitted. "I've never liked any of my girlfriends any more than friends. But I have been friends with blokes and not been sure if I wanted to take things further. Sometimes the line between friend and more is just hard to draw, and I think that's true if you're talkin' about a man or a woman."

Ianto nodded along, letting her voice with its strong Northern accent comfort him.

"But what about your boss, that you were talkin' about?" she asked after they'd been sitting in silence for a few moments. "Were you not sure about him?"

"No." Ianto took his hand back, crossed his arms. "I… It was actually when he first drank my coffee," he said with a small smile.

Connie laughed. "Why doesn't that surprise me? Did he fall over himself praisin' you, like I did?"

Ianto sighed. "Actually, he glared at me." Connie's smile fell. "Does that make me a glut for punishment?" he asked, only half-rhetorically.

Connie ran her hand through her shoulder-length hair. "Nah. It just means you got strange tastes. I mean," she considered, "I'll admit he's handsome. One might even say attractive."

"One might even say he looks like a bloody model," Ianto muttered into his cold coffee.

Connie giggled. "Now you're soundin' more like you mean it."

Ianto covered his face with a hand. "Oh God, I'm gay."

Connie laughed again and dragged his hand down from his face, nearly getting her long sleeve dipped in his coffee as she reached over the table. "No, you're not, dimwit."

"I'm not?"

"Well I bloody well hope not, otherwise what are you doin' with me?" she said snarkily.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'm… bisexual," he said, forcing the word out through uncooperative lips.

Connie sighed. "Don't say it like it's a prison sentence, Yan."

"It may as well be," he said in an irritated tone. "If my mam found out about this, God, she'd scream at me."

"What about Rhiannon, eh? What about your sister?" Connie prompted. "Would she disown you?" At Ianto's tentative shake of the head, she grinned. "I didn't think so. The way you talk about her, I bet she's one of those women who'd fight for her family 'gainst the Prime Minister 'imself, isn't she?"

Ianto smiled at the comparison. "Yeah."

"So you think she'd throw you out for likin' a bloke as well as a bird?" Connie asked, trying to kindle the little smile into a full-blown grin.

"I guess not."

"There you are," she said, sitting back in her chair with finality.

"So that's it, then," Ianto summarized. "I'm bi- Goddammit Connie, I'm half a fag," he whined.

"You've gotta not look at it like that, like a  _label_ ," she insisted. "You're not 'Ianto Jones, bisexual,' you're just Ianto who happens to think his boss oughtta be in a nudie mag," she struggled to keep a straight face, then burst into laughter at his expression.

"I did  _not_  say- Don't you- stop it!"

She calmed down. "Okay, fine. I'm sorry. Just, the look on your face-" she collapsed into another fit of giggles.

Ianto let out a big breath. "When you're  _quite_  finished."

"All right, all right," Connie caught her breath. "Where was I?"

"'You're not 'Ianto Jones, bisexual…'"

"Right, right. You're just Ianto who happens to find his male boss attractive. And I can't blame you for that," she continued. "Even if  _I'd_  never go near him with a ten-foot pole, I've got to admit he's a catch."

"That's the worst justification for being gay I've ever heard," Ianto couldn't help but chuckle. "'It's all right because he's handsome.'"

"Sounds fine to me," she laughed.

"Really, though, you can't see it like, like it defines you," she told him. "You can't say 'I am gay' or 'I am bisexual' like it's  _what_  you are. You've got to let it be just a part of you. Like, look," she shifted in her chair. "You are Ianto Jones, from Cardiff. You are Ianto Jones, who likes to play rugby with his mates. You are Ianto Jones, who used to work for Torchwood London. You are Ianto Jones, who makes really stellar coffee.  _And_  you are Ianto Jones, who likes his male boss. It's just  _one_  aspect of you," Connie stressed. "This doesn't  _change_  who you are, it's just what sort of people you like."

Ianto listened, trying to believe her. "I'm just afraid that…"

"Afraid of what?"

"Lots of things," Ianto said slowly, thinking hard. "That people I know will hate me, that they'll shun me. I'm afraid that… if I let myself believe this, if I admit it, then I'll change, or I'll have to change. Like, once I say it to people, there's no going back. I mean," he said, suddenly distressed, "what if this is just a phase? What if it's just him, it's only him, the captain, I mean, and I tell my sister I think I'm bent and then it goes away, and she looks at me like that for the rest of my life? I can't just say 'Never mind, I'm straight again.'"

Connie was biting her lip when he looked up. "I don't know, Yan," she admitted, and he sighed. "I can't answer all that. What I do know is that your real friends won't push you away, and I don't think your sister's family would. And you know what I do know?"

"What?"

"I don't think it's a phase," she said seriously. "If you've been feeling this way for so long, don't you think it would've gone away by now, if it was going to?"

"I don't know," Ianto whispered.

"I think it would've."


	21. Chapter 21

'He just looked so… pitiful,' Tosh thought.

She was staring at her computer screen as if deep in concentration, but she hadn't taken in any of the readings for several minutes. Instead of the variances in Rift turbulence and their correlation to Cardiff weather systems, Tosh was pondering Ianto Jones.

Tosh had never been able to see him like the others. Owen just didn't care, she knew. If Jones wasn't from London, he'd probably treat him just like he did the others, with a great deal of snark and some hidden measure of respect. But Tosh knew that Owen was slightly afraid of London, despite Jack's reassurances that they were mostly independent and London couldn't touch them. Jones' being there was an obvious signal that London did have a significant amount of control over them, and it was just like the medic to lash out when he was afraid.

Gwen's response was even more typical, Tosh decided. Once the former police officer got an idea in her head she wouldn't let it go for heaven and earth. When she'd gotten on her soapbox on Jones' behalf, no amount of arguments from Jack or insults from Owen could convince her that befriending the London agent was dangerous. It went against her moral standards, she'd said. But those ethical guidelines went both ways: once she'd decided that Jones was the enemy, she stood against him with everything in her power, however irrational she seemed to Tosh.

As for Jack, Tosh was caught between being totally unsurprised, and a little dismayed in spite of herself. She had expected a soldier like Jack to be suspicious and untrusting of the enemy in his midst. Having a good knowledge of why and how much Jack abhorred the policies of Torchwood London also went a long way toward understanding why he'd been so frigid toward Jones. But still… Tosh had trouble seeing the man who'd saved her life, been fair to her ever since she'd started working for Torchwood and had been nothing but a great friend and boss for all that time… she couldn't fit that man with the one who could be so cold to someone under his command.

But at least he'd just been cold! Tosh couldn't believe the audacity of Gwen and Owen, to tease Jones so harshly when he was already at his limit from the situation with his speaking. She'd been pushed to step in, to try and comfort Jones even if she couldn't do it in English.

And why was she afraid? Gwen had stood up against Owen and Jack on Jones' behalf, why couldn't she do the same? Except Toshiko wasn't one to be loud or cause unnecessary trouble. And, she supposed, after everything, she was still wary of causing trouble for Jack. For some reason, the presence of an outsider sometimes served to make Tosh more aware that her five-year sentence of being completely at the mercy of Torchwood was not yet over.

So that was it. When he'd saved her from that Weevil, Tosh had wanted to thank him. She'd thought that maybe that would make Jack trust Jones, and he would be part of the team. But Jack had ignored it like it meant nothing, and she'd gone along with it. She'd allowed Jones to be isolated from the team because she had been weak, and then because she felt betrayed about Ianto's report.

What was worse was that Gwen and Owen still thought the entire situation was Jones' fault. Tosh knew that Jack knew that it was his own oversight that had released the most damning evidence to Torchwood London, but he'd said nothing to the team. Tosh sat back in her chair, blinking slowly at the screen as she came to a conclusion.

She couldn't just stand by anymore. She refused to be privy to something she thought was wrong, just because she was shy or afraid. Maybe she couldn't be like Gwen, a loud, fiery defender against injustice, but she would try to help Jones in her own way.

[*]

The knocking made Jack jump in his seat, but he steadied himself immediately. "Enter."

Tosh slipped inside quietly. "You finish that report?" he asked.

"Not yet." Tosh shook her head.

Jack sighed inside at her hesitant expression; he was never quite sure how to handle people who weren't as naturally loud and confident as he was. "What's on your mind?" he began.

"Jones is."

"Oh, were you working on the mental translator?" Jack surmised. He was unprepared for a small flash of anger to appear in her expression. After a moment's consideration he decided, "Maybe you should sit down."

Jack noticed that her blouse was pulled tighter around her breasts as she sat, but it was an unconscious sort of recognition that he didn't pay attention to- this was Tosh, after all: she didn't fit into that category. "Talk to me."

She frowned. "It's just- the way Owen and Gwen were acting, earlier. They were being deliberately cruel."

"I guess, maybe." Jack shrugged, giving her an expectant face.

"It's not right," she said firmly.

Jack suppressed a smile, sure that it wouldn't go over well just then. He did love it when Toshiko decided to be passionate about something; it didn't happen often, but it was a privilege to see the spark in her eyes and the flush of her cheeks whenever emotions really got the better of her.

But he did wish she hadn't chosen this particular cause to focus on.

He sighed. "They may be acting a little over-the-top." He preempted her objections with a lazy shrug and a question. "But what can you do?"

"You can tell them to lay off him!"

Jack's eyebrows rose, and Toshiko looked slightly stunned at the venom in her own voice. "I, I just mean-" she shook her head and started over. "You should say something to them, Jack. Make them notice that he's not the enemy!"

Jack didn't say anything for a moment as his heart sunk. Out of all of them, he'd expected it to be Gwen who would eventually get to the heart of the issue, but he'd counted himself lucky when she'd stopped pushing on this front. Toshiko, he knew, was different: she might stop trying if ordered, but she would not stop wondering. Jack decided it was time to drop the carefree act that he'd purposefully been projecting for this conversation.

"It's better this way," he said gently. He waited for the indignant expression to form, then quelled it with a wave of his hand. "I know, I know what you're going to say," he sighed, allowing himself to sink into his chair. "'How could the way things are now be the better option?'"

"I think it's a good question," she answered quietly.

"It is," Jack agreed. "One I hoped no one would ask, because the truth hurts."

This felt like an important moment, for all that he knew it wouldn't change anything. "Jones isn't going to be here very long," he began. "This whole 'liaison' thing. I'd never allow it to keep going on. Yvonne's got the power right now, but that'll change, and then he'll be back in London where he belongs."

Tosh nodded slowly. "But why does that mean we can't be kind to him while he's here?"

"Because this way, he won't get attached. And neither will we." When he saw that that explanation wasn't going to fly with her, he gave in, dredging up a hidden piece of his heart. "Tosh, Suzie was meant to be a temporary position herself, remember?"

Tosh nodded. She'd been at Cardiff already when Jack had asked Suzanne Costello to help them out 'for just one case.'

"But she was friendly, and had a good sense of humor. Suzie knew her stuff, she fit in. And when it was time to leave, she said she liked it here: she wanted in. I thought she'd make a good Torchwood agent, so I let her stay." Jack laced his fingers together behind his head. "I don't think I'll stop second-guessing that decision for a long time."

"Do you think that's likely with Jones?" Tosh pushed. Jack could see she wasn't quite willing to let this go, even if he'd already made up his mind. He took a moment to consider his words, knowing that if he couldn't convince Toshiko, she might take initiative on Jones' behalf by herself.

"I think it's possible. Look, Tosh," Jack said seriously. "I know he's not the enemy. Maybe he's actually a nice guy, who knows? But the position he's in is untenable: he's under London's command, more specifically Yvonne's command, inside my base. I know it sounds like a petty thing, but our policies and practices are entirely different, as you know." He paused and Tosh nodded in agreement.

"Part of his job is to report the daily workings of our base to London. Supposedly to make Torchwood practices 'transparent.' As if a secret organization needs to be ready for lawsuits," he rolled his eyes. "The truth is that she's trying to take over the Cardiff branch, has been for years. She thinks I'm a threat to her position. So she has Jones send her his reports."

"But  _he_  hasn't done anything to deserve the way we've been treating him," Tosh insisted.

Jack sighed. "It's not like that. Anything he finds out about what we do here goes straight to Yvonne. What do you think would happen if she heard about all the aliens we've relocated to Cardiff and the surrounding area over the years? What if she found out that you and Owen modified the Retcon formula so new memories can be implanted to replace the old ones?" Seeing Tosh pale, Jack knew he'd gotten his point across. "I'm not trying to isolate Jones, Tosh. But the honest truth is, he's a liability that I can't have too close to my team. You know Owen, and Gwen especially, would have trouble watching everything they said around him. And we saw in his report after the quantum transducer case that he's smart and insightful. He would find out about Flat Holm, and the regular supplies we have flown in from off world for our resident aliens, and he would send that on to London. And then-" he shook his head, "terrible things would happen, Tosh."

"Look, I see where you're coming from. We're not barbarians, what's wrong with being friendly?" Tosh nodded, lips pursed. Jack continued. "It goes back to what I said before. I don't want us, or him, getting too attached. He's obligated to send what he finds out to Yvonne, even if he knew what she would do with it. If he refused, he could be punished by Torchwood regulations, and those can be particularly nasty. I don't want to put him in the position of having to choose between loyalty to friends he made here, and protecting his life."

"I don't like this any more than you do, but I'm the boss, and that means having to make the tough decisions." Jack drew himself up as though he could feel the weight of that responsibility on his shoulders. "This is the way it has to be," he said firmly. "If I had to choose between Ianto Jones and all the good things that we've done in my Torchwood, I wouldn't have to think twice."

Tosh was frowning, thinking everything he'd said through thoroughly like she always would. Jack waited in silence. He knew that what he'd said and the conclusions he'd come to would walk the edge of her morals. He needed to let her decide for herself, and rushing would only hinder the process.

After a few minutes, while Jack waited and let the silence brew, she nodded. "I think I understand better now where you've been coming from."

Jack breathed out. He hadn't been completely sure she'd agree, and the part of him that always second-guessed his command decisions was comforted that his trusted friend backed up the tough choices he'd had to make.

"But-" she qualified, "I still think we should try to be more pleasant while he's here, at the very least. Maybe we can't be his friends, but we don't have to be as unaccepting of outsiders as London is."

Jack considered this. He smiled, accepting the compromise. "All right, Tosh. You and me, we'll keep an eye on him."

She returned the smile, even if it wasn't quite as truly happy as he might wish. "We can be friends from afar."

[*]

"Did you leave this, Tosh?"

The computer expert looked up from her computer, more than a hint annoyed at the distraction. "What?"

Gwen brandished a large box wrapped in red and blue paper. "This was on my desk. You're coming to my party later on, you don't need to give it to me now," she chastised

"I didn't," Tosh said bluntly, then watched the look of confusion steal over Gwen's face. "You know," she thought suddenly, "the last time something was left on my desk it was Jones."

Gwen's face hardened. "What do you mean?"

"That textbook I asked you about last month? Apparently, he'd heard me mention it and got a friend to find it for me."

Gwen snorted. "How'd he 'hear about it' then, tappin' your phone? Well, I'll go ask him."

Tosh bit her lip at the jibe and followed out of a sense of protectiveness.

Gwen burst into the tourist office, waving the box around. "Did you leave this?" she demanded.

Jones looked up from his work, startled. "Uh, yes I did. Happy birthday." Tosh thought she saw a smile try to grow on his face, but it didn't fully appear.

"I don't need your presents," Gwen said angrily. She dropped the box on the counter, where it made a loud thump. The she turned on her heel and stormed past Tosh back to the Hub.

Tosh saw Jones looking at the present with an expression she recognized. "Are you all right?" she asked awkwardly.

Jones looked up, face blank again. "Fine."

Tosh nodded, and went to follow Gwen.

"Wait!" Jones called. Tosh stepped back into the office.

"Could you, perhaps, do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is," Tosh answered.

"Could you maybe rewrap that, give it to her yourself?" Jones asked slowly. Whatever confused face she made, he sighed, shoulders relaxing from their typing position.

"I didn't get it so she'd accept a gift from me; I got it because I thought she'd like it. I don't care if she thinks it's from you."

Tosh looked at him curiously, but took the box from the counter before returning to the Hub.

[*]

Gwen sat on the couch on the platform, opening presents from her team.

"Oh, not that one next," Owen laughed, face stuffed with cake. "Save mine for last."

"All right then," Gwen said suspiciously.

Jack laughed at her expression. "There, there's another one hiding under Tosh's chair," he pointed.

"Is that from you, Tosh?" Gwen asked, surprised. "You already got me the beautiful scarf." She rubbed the soft fabric of the garment against her cheek.

Tosh nodded. Gwen thought she looked a bit guilty as she picked up the present wrapped in shimmering purple paper, but she couldn't imagine why and put the expression out of her mind.

Quickly removing the midnight blue bow and ribbons, Gwen peeled the tape away from the present. Once it was gone, a large white box was visible, the sort that Gwen recognized. "Oh, Tosh," she breathed.

Gwen opened the lid and gasped. "This is divine, Tosh!" She stood up, setting the paper and box on the couch and removed the black leather jacket carefully, feeling the soft give of high-quality fabric under her fingers.

"Not bad," Owen commented.

Gwen slipped the coat on, surprised when it fit her curves perfectly. Even more valuable was the sight of Jack's eyes as he followed the line of the jacket.

"I didn't know you had such good taste, Tosh," Gwen smiled. "I'm really impressed."

Tosh nodded. "Just got lucky, I guess," she shrugged, picking half-heartedly at her cake.


	22. Chapter 22

Two weeks after Gwen's birthday, almost four months since Jones had joined Torchwood Three, Jack was startled to hear the man's solid Welsh voice over the comm unit.

"Sorry sir, Ms. Sato is indisposed at the moment with tracking on the CCTV. What can I do?"  
Jack swore. "All right, try and find out what we can use to take down a carnivorous mollusk from the Elvis galaxy." He switched off the comm.

"From the where?" Gwen broke the silence in the Range Rover. "Did you say the Elvis galaxy?"  
Jack cringed. "Yeah, they had a phase for naming places after musicians for a while."

Four hours, two collapsed buildings, six civilian casualties, eighteen Retcon pills and one sedated carnivorous mollusk from the Elvis galaxy later, the team returned to the Hub exhausted and covered in salt water.

Jones was waiting with warms towels. "What have we got?" he asked as he dried his hair and hung up his greatcoat.

"No fatalities," Tosh announced. "Those tenements were going to be torn down anyway, so they were empty… actually that'll help with the cover-up, we can say they were just demolished early."

"Great. Coffee!" Jack barked, slumping on the couch. Gwen soon slumped down beside him, wet hair in a loose ponytail. Owen had his head on his forearms on his desk.

"Could this day get any longer?" the medic moaned.

"Oh, don't jinx it Owen," Gwen begged. Jack tried to laughed, but he didn't have the energy.  
"Coffee, sir." Jack reached out his hand, eyes closed, and felt a warm mug safely guided into it. He took a sip and, suddenly, the day wasn't as bad.

"Have I ever told you that this is the best coffee I've tasted in my life, Jones?"

There was absolute silence. Jack opened his eyes.

Everyone was staring at him with looks of utter shock. Even Toshiko had turned away from her monitor and slipped her glasses down her nose to see him above them.

"I'll take that as a no?" he asked.

"Um, no, sir, you've never said that," Jones stuttered. He passed out the rest of the coffee to continued silence.

Looking rather awkward, the liaison agent then left the Hub. Feeling a bit frivolous, Jack watched him go.

"What's the matter with you?" Gwen said suddenly. Jack looked at her in surprise.

"I was just looking," he defended.

"Have you forgotten what he did to us?" Gwen demanded, finding energy enough to sit up. "That he sold us out to Torchwood One?"

"Of course not," Jack replied, feeling a little irritated. "Does that mean I can't say he makes good coffee?"

Gwen didn't answer, but from the set of her face Jack could see her answer. He glanced at Owen. The medic had his chin raised to Jack, face bearing the same expression as Gwen. Jack looked to Toshiko, but she was watching the other two warily. Jack frowned.

"Speaking of which," Owen interjected, "he's gonna write another report about this massive cock-up. What are we gonna do then? It's gonna be the Ghost Machine all over again!"

Jack flinched. He hadn't thought of that. "No one died," he said thoughtfully. "We got the alien, even if I have no idea what we're going to do with it," he considered the seven foot wide clam-like creature currently occupying one of their cells. "If we do a good job on clean-up, we might get off relatively unscathed."

"Since when do we have to work to someone else's specifications?" Gwen asked, flopping back down on the couch.

Jack shook his head, wondering the same thing.

[*]

At nine o'clock on Friday night, the whole team was standing around Tosh's computer. Needless to say, she was not very comfortable with the development.

"There's more than enough monitors to go around you guys," she hinted. Gwen and Owen moved to the doctor's workstation.

"Should we be looking at this, do you think?" Tosh asked nervously as her mouse hovered.  
"Nope," Owen said, popping the 'p'. "But that's not gonna stop us, is it?"

"Open it, Tosh," Jack prompted.

Tosh sighed and double-clicked her algorithm that would crack the relatively simple encryption on Jack and Jones' shared folder. Almost immediately, the file popped up, displaying Jack's mission report as well as Jones' multiple documents. The same image appeared on Owen's screen, where Tosh had linked the monitors.

"There!" Gwen announced as they all scanned the list of documents. "Second in the last column."

"Who knew Teaboy had so much paperwork?" Owen grumbled.

Tosh opened the document and they all began to read.

…

Report Summary of Location and Retrieval of Class Three Alien Hos-Elv-06-0001. Compiled by Ianto Jones, Torchwood London Liaison Officer.

Torchwood Agent Third Class Gwen Elizabeth Cooper (heretofore 'Cooper') received reports through local law enforcement agency (Cardiff Police, see 'Contacts') of a disturbance which she determined fell under Torchwood purview. After ascertaining with the help of Probationary Agent Toshiko Sato (heretofore 'Sato') that the disturbance was alien in origin and required immediate response, Cooper, Torchwood Three Head Agent Captain Jack Harkness (heretofore 'Harkness') and Torchwood Agent First Class Doctor Owen Harper (heretofore 'Harper') left to deal with the disturbance.

While the field team was en route, Sato determined that the as-yet-unidentified alien was endangering several civilians. Harkness identified it as a carnivorous, non-sentient life form from the Elvis galaxy, which he instructed was very dangerous. I was able to locate a file in the Torchwood Three archives detailing a sedative which affected the alien in question (see 'Medical Effects').

On arrival at the scene of the disturbance, Cooper attempted to clear the area of civilians. Harkness acted as a distraction to the alien, which pursued him with carnivorous intent. Harper used his field kit to develop a sedative for use on the creature.

When Harper attempted to sedate the alien, it tried to flee, crashing into a building (see 'Damages') and causing it to cave in, almost hitting Harkness and injuring four civilians who were in the vicinity (see 'Casualties'). It then fled the vicinity while Harkness led Cooper and Harper in code one apprehension maneuvers.

The field team managed to flank the alien and surround it. Its hard outer shell (see 'Medical Reports') deflected bullets, but the sound of discharge seemed to cow it, allowing Harper to sedate it without injury. However, once the sedation began to take effect, the alien became frantic and began flipping. It collided with another building, which also collapsed, injuring another civilian (See 'Damages' and 'Casualties'). A sixth civilian was also grazed by a bullet ricochet (see 'Casualties').

The gunfire had attracted a small crowd, so Cooper began to distribute Retcon while Harkness and Harper loaded the alien into the Torchwood vehicle (proper containment protocols in place). Ambulances arrive to take care of casualties and the field team began clean-up efforts with local police.

Clean-up was continued the following day by Harkness, Harper, Sato and myself. The alien is currently in Torchwood Three custody, awaiting action.

Personal Notes: Despite the large amount of damages and six civilian casualties which occurred during the course of this mission, I would still consider it a success. If the field team had not acted as fast as they did, it's likely that the situation would have turned out much worse.  
Captain Harkness lead the team with intelligent tactics and exhibited exemplary bravery while distracting a creature that wanted to eat his internal organs.

Dr. Harper was, honestly, brilliant, taking a formula he'd never encountered before and creating a sedative for the alien. He did this in an extremely timely fashion, despite numerous distractions and not actually having most of the ingredients in his field kit. Instead he used substitutes and devised what is actually an entirely different- but no less potent- sedative.

Ms. Cooper was irreplaceable with her ability to distributing Retcon to a crowd of eighteen without any assistance, while convincing them not to call the police. She also thought of using a film shooting as a cover for the events in case any witnesses had not been apprehended.

All in all, I was quite impressed with the actions of the team on this occasion. Now to find out what that bloody clam eats…

…

"You see that! Even Teaboy admits my genius!" a delighted Owen crowed.

"I'm 'irreplaceable,'" Gwen preened.

"Look at that Jack, 'exemplary bravery,'" Owen poked the screen. "Kiss up to the boss much?"

"But all of that's in the personal notes," Tosh pondered.

Jack nodded. "That means it's not meant to be in the actual mission report, it's eyes only. Actually, some of the stuff Yvonne wanted to use to prosecute us was from Jones' personal notes."

"But doesn't 'eyes only' mean it can't be used as official evidence?" Gwen pointed out.

"That's one reason why those charges never could've gone through," Jack agreed.

"But why has he done a one-eighty?" Gwen asked. "Before, his report got us in trouble, now he's praisin' us, what's that about?"

"No idea," Jack admitted. After a moment's thought, he made a decision. "We'll let it go. Technically, we shouldn't be looking at this," he acknowledged to Tosh.

The computer expert nodded to him and closed the document.

[*]

That night, Jack was chatting with a friend on the internet when he received an email from his team. He clicked the email program's pop-up and opened the message without checking what it was.

Several spreadsheets opened themselves, filling his window. Jack cursed and tried to find the tab to the actual email.

" " "

 _Subject: Discrepancy_  
Sender: Jones, Ianto;  
Sir,  
If you check over the enclosed spreadsheets you will note a marked increase in the demand for certain Class A and Class B controlled substances at the Flat Holm Island Station over the past several months. I have highlighted all instances of their requisition and enclosed a further chart for each individual drug which allows you to see very clearly how the medical requisitions are being abused.  
I suspect that one of the nurses on the island is using the medical requisition as a way to acquire drugs for sale. Some of the substances in question fetch a good street price, including morphine and fentanyl. I would suggest investigating the discrepancy.  
Jones

_" " "_

Jack flicked through the spreadsheets, noting the sections Jones had highlighted and came to the final charts, eyes wide in disbelief.

He nearly rushed out to Flat Holm at that moment, but paused, a greater danger raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He quickly selected the shared folder that contained the report Jones had sent to London earlier that day. He opened the report summary with a shaking mouse.

There was no mention of Flat Holm whatsoever.

[*]

" " "

 _Subject: Taken Care of_  
Sender: Harkness, Captain Jack;  
Jones,  
Since I expect you're the one who's been handling the budget anyway, would you mind taking Joshua Coleman off the payroll for Flat Holm? He no longer requires a paycheck.  
And Jones? Don't tell anyone about Flat Holm.  
Harkness

_" " "_

_" " "_   
_Subject: RE: Taken Care of_   
_Sender: Jones, Ianto;_   
_Sir,_   
_Payroll corrected._   
_Tell anyone about what?_   
_Jones_   
_" " "_


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!  
> lol in a complete coincidence this is the Christmas chapter, I swear I didn't even realize.

It was nearly Christmas, and Ianto was pleasantly surprised to discover that he had more invitations than he could actually attend. His sister was insisting that a family Christmas came first, of course, and he'd be able to visit the acquaintances he'd made in Cardiff if he went to that. Ianto's friend Evan in London was hosting a party at his flat, and Shay and the archive gang wanted Ianto to go to that. Connie had said that she was free if he wanted company, and that she would go to London if he wanted but that she didn't want to meet his family.

"It's just, you know, families," she explained over a mug of cocoa in Ianto's flat. "I mean, your last relationship was pretty intense, so if I met them, they'd probably think we were going to get married or something. And your London crowd knows we're not serious."

"Yep, just friends with benefits," Ianto sighed. "Would getting you to dress up like one of Santa's elves be a benefit?" he asked as he started kissing her neck.

"God save me from Christmas cheer," she groaned, pushing him over so he was pinned to the floor.

The only group he didn't get an invitation from was his workmates, but then he hadn't really expected one.

Captain Harkness had announced that he'd be taking over Rift-watching duties during the holidays so that the others could visit their families and friends. Apparently it was Owen's year to be on call, which the medic had grumbled about good-naturedly; even he'd been satisfied by the amount of eggnog flowing during the holiday season.

In the end, Ianto decided to stay home for Christmas and spend New Year's in London, a decision that turned out for the better when his old archive friends ended up roped into Yvonne's Christmas do.

"Streamers," Andrea had moaned over Skype. Ianto laughed while she went cross-eyed on the video feed. "So many streamers!"

Rhiannon was feeling very well and the children were well-behaved. Even Johnny was tuning down his usual over-stimulating demeanor. The adults chatted and drank eggnog while the kids drank spiced cider and watched a new animated Christmas movie. Ianto slept over at their house in his old guest room and woke up the next morning to the classic of children jumping on his bed shouting about presents.

Rhiannon and Johnny had bought him an old volume of Sherlock Holmes stories that Ianto had adored as a child. He found the memories behind the gift were worth much more than the monetary value and had hugged his sister tight, tears in his eyes, after he finished unwrapping it.

Ianto loved shopping for others, absolutely loved it. It was one of his favorite things, to browse through shops and imagine the looks on people's faces as they opened the gifts he'd picked out just for them. During the year, if Ianto saw something while shopping that he thought a friend would like, he'd buy it right then, and give it to them either spontaneously or save it for a birthday or holiday. For this Christmas, he'd taken advantage of his increased paycheck and gone all out. He'd spent the usual fortune on his niece and nephew and enjoyed their happy shouts as much as the drawing from Mica or the black wallet he received from David, which was, interestingly, covered in little green men.

"It was the best in the shop," David shrugged when asked about his inspiration.

As relaxed and comfortable as Christmas at home was, New Year's in London was just as fabulous. Ianto's mates, along with their current partners and various friends who'd tagged along for the ride, went on a huge club hop around London following Evan's great social taste and nose for free drinks.

They set out at six, and by the time the countdown was approaching all of them were stoned from drinks and exhausted from dancing. Everyone was smiling and cheering, though, as they watched the fireworks at the London Eye on a big screen in the club and chanted the countdown.

_"…Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Woooooo!"_

As everyone around them began snogging, Ianto and Connie tried to kiss, then had to break apart from laughing so hard. They screamed along with all the other patrons and went to grab more free drinks.

A shout, "Hey Yan!" was all the warning Ianto got before he was spun around and thoroughly kissed. When they broke apart, Shay leaned in close to be heard over the crowd. "Happy New Year!"

[*]

After celebrating Christmas individually, the team met up at the Hub on the twenty-eighth to exchange gifts. Jones had found a medium-sized false tree somewhere and the four of them brought in baubles and tinsel to decorate it, using an alien trick helmet with lights that flashed in seven directions as a star. They all ate a slow-roasted turkey courtesy of Gwen's boyfriend and watched 'A Christmas Carol' in the conference room. After dinner, the four of them merrily piled onto the couch, full from good food and good company, to open presents.

"Get your elbow outta my gut, Cooper!"

"If you would move over-"

"Can we not argue-"

"Kids, don't shove people on the couch-"

"All right, I'm movin'!"

"Thank goodness for that, I'd thought-"

"Oh shut up, you-"

"Owen!"

"What!"

"Anyone feel like getting to the presents anytime soon?"

Owen, now sitting on the floor, grumbled and started chucking presents at their recipients.

"Careful!"

"Hey, that one's fragile!"

"Ow!"

"Settle down!"

Once they'd got organized, everyone started opening presents. After a few had been opened, Tosh came across one with her name on it, wrapped in paper that was striped red and white like a candy cane.

"Who is this from?" she asked. "It doesn't have a name on it."

Everyone looked at someone else.

"You don't think-"

"No, 'course not."

"Huh?"

"Jones."

"Oh."

With six eyes on her now, Tosh opened the gift carefully. It was in a long box that Gwen mentioned looked like it carried a necklace. But when Tosh opened it, she removed a few strips of paper.

"What's it say?" Owen pressed.

"It's… oh," she breathed.

"Good?" Jack inquired.

"Very good," Tosh commented, eyes wide. "It's season tickets to the ballet, all plus-one."

"You like the ballet?" Gwen asked in surprise.

"I love the ballet," Tosh said seriously, staring at the tickets. "But I have no idea how Jones knew that.

"Wait, there's more." Under the tickets in the box hadn't been the usual white padding, but… "Socks?"

"Mouse socks."

"Computer mouse socks."

After a moment of surprise, the team burst out laughing.

"Where would you even find that?" Gwen asked, trying to breathe.

When they recovered, Gwen reached for her own candy cane present. This was much larger than Tosh's, and heavier. When unwrapped, it too was a box.

"Oh my goodness!" Gwen gasped. She threw off the lid to show the team the beautiful black leather boots.

"Gorgeous," Tosh complimented.

"I hope they fit," Gwen added, tearing off her shoes and sliding her feet into the boots. She zipped them up the side and pulled the legs of her jeans up to display them.

"Oh God they're so comfortable," Gwen moaned. The boots covered most of her calves snugly and the top was modestly fur-lined.

"They look like they'll compliment your coat," Jack nodded at the garment Gwen had worn to the Hub.

Gwen retrieved the jacket from her desk and tugged it on. "You're right!" she gasped. "Tosh, where did you buy this coat?" Gwen queried, already planning a trip to the same store.

To her surprise, the computer tech blushed. "Actually…"

"What is it?" Gwen urged.

"The jacket… I didn't buy it."

"Then who did?" Owen asked distractedly, already picking at his own candy-cane present.

"That was the present Jones got you."

While Gwen stared in shock, Jack took the initiative.

"Then why did you end up giving it to her, Tosh?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

"I said I didn't want it," Gwen admitted before Tosh could answer. "You actually switched the wrapping paper and gave me someone else's present?" she asked incredulously.

"It wasn't like that, he asked me to!" the other woman insisted.

"I don't know what goes through Teaboy's mind, but can we please get back to Christmas?"

"Fine," Gwen said absently. "I wonder if I got socks." Sure enough, when she reached into the box she pulled out socks with bowling pin designs. She stared at the socks for a few moments, forehead crinkling as though she were troubled.

"I can't believe he remembered that I said I love bowling," she murmured.

"My turn!" Owen announced abruptly, tearing the paper off his box. He threw the lid to the side and pulled out-

"Bunny slippers?"

Gwen cracked up. "Killer bunny slippers!" she corrected. "From Monty Python! Rhys' friend Banana Boat loves that film."

"That's perfect for you Owen," Jack chuckled.

"What are you talking about?" Owen scowled as he turned over the slippers.

"Small and cute," Jack said between breathing hard, "but if you're not careful it's got a killer bite!"

"Yeah yeah, very funny," Owen shouted over his teammates' laughter. "This better not be the actual present." He checked the box again and drew out a smaller box. "What is it with all the boxes?" he muttered to himself. "'e couldn't just wrap it straight?"

"So what is it?" Tosh asked.

Owen was beaming madly. "The newest edition of my handheld!" he shouted. "It's compatible with my old one, so I can just upload my records, but if I'm not mistaken… Yes!" He punched the air. "All new updates, new games, internet connection, and- What?" After another few seconds of poking the screen, during which time the others sniggered, Owen cried, "But that's not even out yet! How the hell did he get that?"

"Your turn Jack," Gwen announced over Owen's continued commentary. She handed him the last candy cane-striped box, grunting at the weight. It was taller than the others, but not as long or wide as the box for Gwen's boots.

Jack didn't tear the wrapping paper off like Owen, but it ripped in a few places as he pulled at it, grinning.

Jack's box wasn't of thick paper like the others, but a real hatbox. The team watched curiously as Jack undid the clasp and drew out the present.

"Wow," Jack whispered.

"Looks like a ponce hat," Owen commented, shrugging.

"Is it expensive?" Tosh guessed.

"Probably, but that's not what's important. You can't get these anywhere," Jack said, brushing a thumb over the worn brass front piece. "It's a genuine 1940's RAF Group Captain hat. These are in museums, or private collections, or somebody's attic."

"Expensive, then," Gwen repeated.

"Maybe," Jack said quietly, still gazing at the hat.

"Are there socks?" Tosh smiled.

This drew Jack's attention from his contemplation and he turned the hat up-side down. Indeed, tucked inside the hat itself, there was a pair of socks. "Fighter plane socks."

Gwen watched as the captain smiled at the socks, then went back to touching each part of the cap carefully.

Owen was completely entranced by his gaming device and Tosh was smiling softly and the tickets.

"You know, there are other presents," she reminded them. Immediately Owen was jumping up to grab the next gift and Tosh followed, caught up in the enthusiasm.

[*]

Ianto returned to work on January third with a big smile. Connie had stayed the night and they'd watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' on his television. Or, more accurately, he'd watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' while Connie explored his gift, a new Palm Pilot. Only after they'd watched the classic holiday movie did she permit him to open her present, a box set of Indiana Jones movies.

Ianto was surprised upon opening the door to the tourist office to discover Toshiko standing there with a snowman gift bag and a smile. "Happy New Year," he said with a slight questioning inflection.

"Happy New Year," she answered. Then she held up the bag. "And happy Christmas."

Ianto took the bag and looked inside curiously. He tugged out a long box. Then he set it down on the counter and took off his long winter coat before opening it.

"Well… thank you," he said. The crimson red tie was of a very high quality, and Ianto could already tell it would compliment two of his suits. "Thank you," he repeated, staring at Toshiko in surprise.

"That's not all," she nodded toward the bag.

He checked again and saw a pair of socks. He tugged them out and checked the design. "Hot chocolate?"

"They're the closest I could find to coffee," she blushed slightly. "What's the socks thing about, anyway?"

Ianto smiled. "Family tradition. Everyone gets a new pair of socks for Christmas, whether they need them or not."

"There's a bit more, if you look right at the bottom," Toshiko pointed again.

This time, Ianto removed the thin pink tissue paper and saw the brass tiepin at the bottom. Drawing it out, he smiled again.

"This is beautiful, Toshiko," he corrected, feeling his face redden.

She gave him a shy-looking smile. "Well, thank you for the tickets, they're wonderful. And I told Gwen the truth about the jacket. She liked both her gifts, everyone liked them, actually."

"Good," Ianto nodded.

After a short, awkward silence, Toshiko burst out, "Why did you do it?"

Ianto had been expecting the question. "I like Christmas shopping," he shrugged.

Toshiko looked at him almost disbelievingly. It looked as though she had something she wasn't to say, but she seemed to lose her nerve. "All right then, back to work," she said eventually.

"Always back to work," he agreed.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhhh okay, _now_ posting should be back to normal. Sorry. Holidays were... let's just go with busy.

On Ianto's second day back from London, he found a package in a drawer of his desk efficiently wrapped in shimmering blue paper.

Upon unwrapping it he'd become confused to discover a white and black device. When he switched it on (with no small amount of suspicion), he found that it was a GPS, and that two sets of coordinates had been set into the system. The first was centered in the middle of the Bristol Channel, where a quick squint determined was actually the location of Flat Holm Island.

Ianto was a bit confused at that, seeing as he already knew where the island was. But upon reading the next location, and the message with it, everything became clear.

_Fifty pounds; Be prepared; Don't make me regret this;_

The device's settings specifically marked a particular pier and time.

Ianto swallowed past the lump in his throat and held the GPS tightly as a warm feeling of trust spread through him.

[*]

Father Christmas seemed to be giving Ianto a different sort of presents that year: ones that didn't come in a box.

The first few days after he returned from London, Ianto noticed the members of Torchwood Three behaving a bit oddly toward him. Firstly, Gwen didn't look him in the eye. This wasn't new, since the former copper tended to look through him whenever she could, but now she seemed almost embarrassed in his presence. She would stop talking if he came near, which made Ianto uncomfortable, so he tried not to do that as much as possible.

Finally, she came up to him while he was cleaning the conference room.

"Jones?" she asked. Having noted her presence a few minutes before, he was unsurprised and turned to face her calmly. She looked somewhat nervous, but covered it up with a businesslike expression.

"I just wanted to say thank you for the Christmas gift. The boots fit me perfectly."

"You're welcome," Ianto nodded and went back to wiping down the large glass table. He couldn't help but be affected by the strong awkward feel of the conversation and hoped she would take the hint and leave.

"And…"

Apparently, taking a hint was another of those things Gwen refused to understand.

"Rhys and I were wondering if you wanted to come bowling with us some time."

He waited to turn back around until he got his shocked expression under control.

"He'll probably invite some of his friends from work, and Owen might come, if I can convince him- Tosh hates bowling, and Jack always finds some excuse, but there'd be enough for a teams thing, and if you're good, then-"

"I'd love to," Ianto cut off the nervous babble with a smile, reminded of their very first conversation when he'd arrived. She smiled back, waffled for a moment then left.

He watched bemusedly as she walked away, then shrugged. It hadn't been the strangest thing that had happened:

Toshiko had brought him a coffee.

"Um… thank you?" he said, holding the Starbucks cup in one hand and staring at it uncertainly.

Toshiko shifted uncomfortably in the middle of the tourist office. "I just thought, you always make it for us…" she shrugged.

"I could've brewed some, you didn't have to buy it," Ianto pointed out.

"Well, I wanted to… I figured I could, bring _you_ some coffee. For a change," she blushed.

Ianto rather thought she'd gone a bit mad.

"Well, thank you," he said finally.

"You're welcome," she muttered, rushing through the door to the Hub.

Dr. Harper's attitude didn't seem to be affected at all by the Christmas break, but he, like Gwen, didn't meet Ianto's eyes when he called for coffee. Ianto caught him playing on the handheld he'd bought and smirked where the medic couldn't see him.

The strangest change, however, was in Captain Harkness. For some reason, whenever Ianto made his presence known the captain would look at him as though he were a fascinating artifact to be studied. This was quite unsettling, so Ianto made an effort not to be visible around the captain. Not that that was very difficult. Ianto could walk through the team, handing out coffee, meals and paperwork and everyone seemed to just look through him. It was only when he called attention to himself, by occasionally asking a question or volunteering an opinion, that they saw him at all.

However, when, one night, Ianto was late tidying up the accumulated detritus of the team's desk area, he caught the captain watching him curiously from the doorway to his office.

"Was there something you required, sir?" he asked respectfully.

That captain fixed him with that stare that seemed to be picking him apart…

"Just watching you pick up those papers," the captain grinned.

…or maybe undressing him mentally.

"Um…" Ianto was at a loss for words. He stared blankly.

"Did I say something wrong?" Captain Harkness asked in that odd way of his, half joking, half serious, and definitely requiring an answer.

"Er, no, sir," Ianto stuttered. "I was just surprised."

"Oh." The other man looked confused.

The conversation ground to a halt. Ianto waited, then slowly turned and continued his work.

"Do you want a drink?"

Ianto looked at the captain, expecting… he didn't know what to expect. "I should be going, sir."

"Oh… all right."

Ianto got the impression that the captain had never been turned down before, or at the very least wasn't used to it. "Uh… maybe another time?"

"Sure, sure. Good night, Jones."

"Good night, sir."

[*]

Ianto had lied when he said he had anywhere to be that night, but he decided to take Connie's advice and 'get outta your damn house once in a while.'

He ended up in a club, music so loud it was difficult to hear oneself think and flashing lights which, if he'd been so inclined, definitely would have induced a seizure.

Ianto felt right at home.

He bought a drink, spat it out, then decided to just stand on the sidelines and look around. He was wearing long black jeans and a deep blue t-shirt that clung without being stupidly tight, and knew he was getting some serious looks. Ianto was keeping an eye on a redhead in a low-cut top and a brunette who was giving him bedroom eyes from the dance floor, when _he_ walked in.

Tall, dark and handsome, his brain supplied, but that area wasn't working very well as Ianto stared. The man was a god: six feet tall, biceps cut like stone and skin darker than Lisa's that glinted in the flashing light.

Then his eyes found Ianto and he smiled. Ianto shivered with the force of that smile, and just like that, he _knew_. Connie was right, this couldn't just be a phase.

He swallowed, and was relieved to find that his mouth hadn't dropped open, nor was he gaping like an absolute fool. Ianto managed to pull his face into something resembling a smile.

The attempt made the new star of Ianto's dreams grin wider and begin to walk toward him through the crowd. The twenty seconds or so it took for the man to weave through the people was long enough for Ianto to have second thoughts, third thoughts, decide to stay, decide to run, then realize he couldn't because the man was _Right. There._

He was absolutely frozen as the man slowly approached. He stopped inches away from Ianto and drew one long finger down Ianto's cheekbone and across his lower lip. Ianto felt like he was in a dream as the man leaned in to speak in his ear.

"Colton," the man introduced. Pulled back far enough to enrapture Ianto with his smile, but close enough that the smell of his cologne sent Ianto's head spinning.

"Ianto," he managed to choke out.

"Your place or mine, _Ianto_?"

Ianto swallowed and allowed himself to be led out of the club.

[*]

Somehow, after that night, Ianto's attraction to Captain Harkness just got worse.

Now, instead of having vague fantasies of the captain in the lift, he was imagining exactly the feel of the other man's stubble against his cheek, against his stomach, against his _thighs_. He watched that blue shirt stretch over his chest and salivated over how he could stroke the tan skin beneath, watch the muscles jump beneath his touch. He watched Captain Harkness' fingers carefully take apart a delicate Tressad music box and shivered at the strength and efficacy as those wide hands made quick work of the device.

He thought that, maybe, if he weren't mostly invisible, one of the team might have noticed.

However, it wasn't until the wish machine incident that he honestly thought it was anything more than a passing fancy.

[*]

It was probably his fault, in retrospect. Jack considered many things to be his fault, in retrospect. Instances when he hadn't done something he should have, or did something that made a situation worse without knowing.

In this case, he allowed himself to be dragged into a conference call for an argument that really should've been done with in just a few minutes. He sent Tosh and Owen on a retrieval by themselves, then didn't check over what they'd found before Tosh began to inspect it. By the time he stepped out of his office and saw Toshiko about to depress the initializer, it was too late.

"No!"

The world warped in front of his eyes. Then he heard it.

_thrum… thrum… thrum… Thrum, Thrum, Thrum, THRUM, THRUM, THRUMTHRUMTHRUMTHRUM-_

"Doctor…" Jack breathed.

The Tardis appeared in the middle of the Hub with a bright flash of white light. Its door flew open and a tall man in a long black coat stepped out.

"Why, Captain Jack Harkness! Fancy seein' you here! You were gone when we went back to the Game Station, how'd you end up on this old rock then?"

A young, female voice came from inside the telephone box. "Did you say Jack? Is he here?"

Rose tumbled out of the spaceship, all flowing blonde hair and blue jeans and tight shirt. Her face lit up with delight. "Jack, we thought you were dead!"

"You coming or not?" The Doctor waved his hand behind him…

[*]

"Tosh, are you all right? Tosh, answer me!"

"Owen?" she whispered. She could feel her head being cradled, hair smoothed away from her forehead. She cracked open her eyes. The Hub was filled with an odd white light, but she blinked a few times and it came into focus.

Owen was kneeling beside her, her upper back resting on his lap. Tears were trickling down his face, but he gave her a small, beautiful smile. "I thought I'd lost you."

"What happened?" she murmured. His hand felt beautiful on her cheek.

"It exploded," Owen explained. "You could've died."

"I'm here," she promised.

"I'm so glad," he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead. Her eyes dropped shut of their own accord…

[*]

"Katie?" he gasped.

"I knew you wouldn't forget me, Owen," she smiled. The angel held out her hand. "Come here."

Owen leaped out of his seat and ran to her. She met him in a passionate kiss. When they broke apart she wound their hands together and led him to the Hub sofa.

"How did this happen, how're you here?" he croaked, unable to stop the tears at seeing her again. White light glowed from her very skin.

She was just as beautiful as he remembered.

The vision caressed his face. "That doesn't matter," she whispered. "I'm here with you."

Owen hitched a sob and smiled as they leaned in to kiss each other. He closed his eyes and deepened it…

[*]

The captain walked out of his office, and the expression on his face… Ianto couldn't think of anything more radiant, more beautiful.

"Ianto," the captain murmured, stroking his hand across Ianto's shoulder, down his arm. Ianto couldn't speak.

"I am so glad you're here," Captain Harkness said fervently. His deep sapphire eyes reflected some strange white light as they traced Ianto's face.

The captain slowly leaned forward and kissed him, and he let his eyes slide shut…

[*]

Jack swallowed, looking between the Tardis and the spiky metal star on Tosh's desk. It was shining a soothing white light, but the initializer was flashing an urgent mauve.

"Come on Jack, we want to go," Rose waved. "Don't you want to come wif us?"

"I'm sorry," Jack whispered. He reached over to the star and closed his eyes as he pressed the mauve button…

[*]

"Toshiko!"

Ianto jumped as the captain shouted and fell to his knees beside the computer expert, whose body was twitching on the ground.

"But…" Ianto raised a hand to his lips, where Captain Harkness had been intimately pressed not a moment before. "How-"

The captain looked up. "Look," he said shakily, and Ianto was shocked to see the marks of tears on his face. "I know this is hard to believe, but whatever you two saw for the last couple seconds wasn't real, and you're just gonna have to trust me on that. Owen, I think Tosh is in psychic shock, get your medical bag. Now!" he shouted. There was a scrabbling behind Ianto and the medic rushed for the autopsy bay. Ianto heard a cracking sob as he passed.

"Jones, call Gwen and tell her not to come into the Hub," the captain ordered. "It's unlikely, but there may be trace psychic vapors hanging around and we don't want her getting infected."

"Yes sir," Ianto said mindlessly. He tugged out his cell and dialed Gwen's number from heart, speaking mechanically as he watched Dr. Harper and the captain attempt to resuscitate Toshiko.

[*]

A half hour later, once Tosh had woken up and the alien device was successfully contained, Jack explained what had happened.

"It's a fantasy machine, basically," he explained. "Whatever you saw is a dream, the thing that, right now, you wish would happen most, whether it's conscious or not. I don't mean a sexual fantasy, although I'd be happy to offer counseling if anyone had a particularly interesting vision-" he winked.

"Is now really the time?" Owen muttered.

"-but the device was malfunctioning. What's _meant_ to happen is that _one_ person sees a complete dream world, and they believe it, and they live it, until the battery runs out. This one wasn't working right. When Tosh activated it by accident, it didn't know which of us to focus on, so it tried to stretch out to affect all of us. So what we each saw was probably similar to each other's vision, in details or in general."

Jack pointedly didn't look at anyone in particular, but Jones and Tosh blushed, and Owen's face paled. Interesting.

"It probably affected Tosh the worst," he nodded to the woman who still winced at every loud noise, "because she was closest when it malfunctioned."

"You said 'until the battery runs out,'" Tosh repeated. "But it didn't. Why did it stop?"

"I turned it off," Jack told her.

"But didn't you see something too, like us?" Owen said roughly.

"I knew it wasn't real," Jack said firmly. "I was fighting the effects. That's how I stayed in the real world enough to turn it off."

"What did you see?" Tosh asked curiously.

For once, Jack had had enough of his team trying to investigate his personal life. "What did _you_ see?" he retorted.

Tosh looked away.

Jack sighed. "I don't want any of you in tomorrow. Gwen and I can take over the shift." He waited, standing firm and ignoring their protests, until they all left.

[*]

Ianto went to a club again that night. He found a tall, tan brunette with broad shoulders and blue eyes. They danced, and then Ianto kissed him.

After a few seconds, he pulled back and ran, ignoring the cries from the dance floor.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just reread this chapter and made a strange gaspy-yelpy noise because I completely forgot I did this and I was so happy with myself. It's really great being super weird, guys, if you haven't tried it already you should really give it a shot.

For nearly two weeks after the wish machine incident, the captain was horribly grumpy. He snapped at everyone, even Toshiko. The tech confided in Ianto that Captain Harkness never got so grumpy unless he was feeling particularly down about something.

The bad mood lasted until Gwen finally shouted it out with the captain in the middle of the Hub. After that, he just seemed depressed.

Ianto was having issues as well. At least two nights a week, he would go out to clubs or bars and try to find someone to take home, but somehow he never found the right person. He denied the voice in his head that told him he was measuring them all against the captain until he told Connie about his problem.

"You're measurin' them all against the captain," she said flatly.

"I know," Ianto sighed, staring at his kitchen table.

"Are you really _this_ into this guy, that you can't shag anyone else?" Connie asked seriously, since apparently it hadn't been clarified enough.

"It does seem like it."

"Let's see if we can fix that," she said brightly, and ducked under the table.

A few minutes later, she slid back up into her chair. She tapped her finger against the side of the table.

Ianto sighed.

"This is a real problem," Connie admitted.

[*]

So when the man in the red jacket with cheekbones to die for shoved him up against a wall as he walked home from the Hub one night and began to kiss him enthusiastically, Ianto didn't push him away immediately.

This turned out to be a mistake, since it was exactly then that the entire team rushed around the corner.

"Let him go, John!"

'John' broke off the kiss, rolled his eyes, and said, "Maybe next time, eh?" before turning to face the team. "Long time no see."

A flashlight found its way to Ianto's face and he heard a gasp. "Jones?" The medic said in surprise.

"He one of yours, Jack? I gotta say, good taste."

[*]

"We were partners," said 'Captain John Hart' as he was shepherded into the conference room at gunpoint. "In every way," he winked at Toshiko. She scowled.

"It was two weeks, John," Captain Harkness said sharply, pushing the shorter man into a chair.

"Except, the two weeks was trapped in a time loop, so we were together for five years, it was like having a wife," he commented to the rest of the team.

Gwen snorted.

"Why are you here?" Captain Harkness growled.

John swiveled slowly to face him. "I can't just be checking out the sights?" he glanced appreciatively over at Ianto, who was standing, a bit uncertain of where he was meant to be, in the doorway.

"Why. Are. You. Here."

"All right, all right, no need to get overexcited." John managed to convey an entire slew of inappropriate suggestions with his grin. Then he leaned across the table toward Captain Harkness and his face became serious. "An Arcadian diamond."

The whole team, and John too, saw a gleam come into their leader's eyes.

"I thought you'd be interested in that."

"Who'd you steal one of those from?" Captain Harkness challenged.

"Hey, I resent that!" John defended. "This woman owed me, I did her a favor, she said she'd give me the diamond. When she tried to cheat me, we fought over it, it fell into a nearby Rift. I tracked it to here. I figured I'd try and get some help in the morning, but I got lead straight to you," he glanced back at Ianto.

"'It fell into a nearby Rift?'" Gwen said incredulously. "What do you think we are, a group of half-wits?"

John raised an eyebrow. "If you think you know better than me about how time and space travel work, all tied down here on your little planet, then yeah, I think you're an idiot."

Gwen bristled, but noticeably did not have a comeback.

John looked pointedly at Gwen as he spoke. "You definitely need a blonde, Jack."

"Could you locate the diamond, Tosh?" Captain Harkness asked, ignoring his former partner.

Toshiko was already twiddling with her palm pilot. "I think so, if I can get the coordinates where it originated, but there'll probably be several possible matches, since the object that came through would be so small."

"Well, I can wait," John said, standing up from his seat and flicking the lapel of his Napoleonic coat.

"Where do you think you're going?" demanded Captain Harkness.

John smiled. "I'm gonna go and get a drink, while the local law enforcement agency finds my missing property. That's how it works, when you're the good guy Jack."

The Torchwood leader pointed at the ground. "You stay in here while we confer." He swept out of the room, and was quickly followed by Gwen and Dr. Harper.

Toshiko stayed behind and spoke to Ianto in a low voice. "Why were you kissing him?" she asked curiously.

"I wasn't. He just caught me by surprise, is all," Ianto answered. When Toshiko nodded sympathetically and left, Ianto knew he'd fooled her.

"Well that was a bare-faced lie," John commented, turning the wheeled chair from side to side as he gazed at Ianto's body. "I could tell, you were ready to go," he nodded at Ianto's crotch.

"I'm not gay," Ianto insisted weakly.

John shook his head. "You're not even foolin' yourself, boy," he said, standing up. He strode forward until he was standing nose-to-nose with Ianto.

Just then, Ianto felt like all the bravado had disappeared from John's expression. "You don't have to hide, you know," he murmured. "Life's too short."

Ianto's breath stuttered and his gaze dropped from John's eyes (which seemed to look straight inside Ianto's mind) to his lips.

"You know, strictly speaking, molesting the staff is my job."

Ianto jumped backward and almost collided with the doorframe. Captain Harkness gave him a look as he passed into the room that made Ianto drop his eyes to the floor.

"We'll help," Captain Harkness announced. Ianto heard a sound of approval from the other captain. "But only on the condition that you leave Earth immediately after."

"What if I want to hang around for a while?"

"This is not a game, John. Take it or leave it."

"Fine," John said after a short pause. "Get me my property and I'll clear outta your atmosphere."

[*]

"Jones!"

Ianto turned away from the cog wheel door he'd been about to walk through. "Yes sir?"

The captain motioned for him to follow. Ianto let out an almost silent sigh; he'd been just about to go home.

Ianto closed the door of Captain Harkness' office behind him and sat in the chair. The other man was already leaning back against his desk, watching Ianto as he entered.

"You need to be careful with John," Captain Harkness began tersely.

"I have no intention of being around Captain Hart enough to be anything with him."

The captain gave a small, brittle smile at that. "He gets under your skin."

Ianto didn't have anything to say to that, and it looked like Captain Harkness was reminiscing, so he waited.

When the captain came out of his memories, he looked at Ianto seriously, but with a hint of honest tenderness that knocked the Welshman of guard. "He'll act charming, friendly, insouciant, he'll be an amazing shag" (Ianto's heart nearly jumped into his throat and choked him to death) "but he is _not_ ," the captain emphasized, "trustworthy. Don't believe a word he says. No matter how much you like him, even if you start to love him, promise me you will watch your back around him. Please."

Ianto was at a complete loss for words. Finally, he cleared his throat. "I… I promise, sir."

Captain Harkness' eyes seemed to take in every single detail of his face. Finally, he sighed. "That's the best advice I can offer. Normally I'd say don't let him kiss you, but I guess that isn't going to be an issue this time around." He gave a crooked smirk.

"I suppose, sir." Was Harkness on any illicit drugs at the moment?

"Go home, Jones," Captain Harkness raised his arm in dismissal. Ianto nodded and left by the cog wheel door. He could swear he felt the captain's gaze on the back of his head the whole way.

[*]

So when the man in the red jacket with cheekbones to die for shoved him up against a wall as he walked home from the Hub and began to kiss him enthusiastically, Ianto pushed him away.

"Aw, did he give you the no kissing rule?" John complained. "He only invented that 'cause he wants me all to himself."

Ianto ignored him and continued walking toward his flat.

"Really? You're givin' me the cold shoulder? And what'd I do to deserve this?"

Ianto spun around and found himself inches away from the other man. "I can't have them thinking I'm…" he struggled for words.

"Is this still about the gay thing? Will you get over yourself already, I-"

"No!" Ianto almost shouted. He glanced around. Luckily, it was past midnight and there was almost no one else on the streets in this area. "Well, not entirely. It's not safe for me that they think I'm the sort of person who shags random time travelers!"

"Well if you're not shaggin' random people, where's the fun in life?" John held up his hands as if to indicate the empty streets around them. "Sometimes, takin' a risk is what makes it all worth while."

Ianto stared. "Do you seriously think that?" he asked exasperatedly.

His gaze was met steadily by a pair of intelligent blue eyes. "Yes, I do."

Ianto seriously considered the prospect. On the one hand, if his colleagues found out… Ianto shuddered. They still didn't like him, even if they'd been loosening up a bit lately. Plus, if one of them had the idea of reporting this to London Ianto would probably end up being interrogated and Retconned. On the other hand…

_Takin' a risk is what makes it all worth while._

"My flat's this way."

[*]

"You don't have to go, you know," he offered.

John gave him a disparaging look while pulling his jeans back on. "I'm not exactly the cuddlin' type."

"I mean-" Ianto said a bit louder, waiting until John was paying attention. "I have a spare room."

The captain raised an eyebrow. "You'll shag someone, then offer them your guest room?"

"You'd have to check into a hotel," Ianto explained, "and it's pretty late."

John cocked his head and stared at him. To the point where it was becoming odd. "You don't have to stay, if you don't want to," Ianto said somewhat defensively.

"No!" The captain looked surprised. "No, I'll take the room, I just…" John looked _really_ surprised.

"Is something wrong?" Ianto was started to get a little offended by the staring.

"No. Never mind. The one on the left?" John picked up the rest of his clothes from the floor as he walked down the hallway. Ianto blushed at the trail of clothing that led to the front door.

"Yeah. Towels're in the closet if you need one."

Ianto waited for a response, but none came. He turned over and pulled the covers up to his chin.


	26. Chapter 26

"Ianto! I got your favorite pastry at that bakery down the street, so I expect your best coffee in exchange!"

Enveloped in his soft, warm bed, Ianto smiled.

Then he sat up and gasped.

"Connie! Don't-"

"Well hello, gorgeous!"

Ianto burst into the room in time to see his friend admiring a shirtless Captain Hart. "You gonna introduce me, Yan?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes playfully.

"I can introduce myself." John took Connie's hand and shook it lightly, rakish grin on his face. "Captain John Hart."

Connie laughed. " _Another_ captain, Ianto? Although I think this one's the better deal," she licked her lips, eyes sweeping down John's bare chest and tight jeans while Ianto looked on in horror.

"And _this_ is why I said you needed a blonde!" John said, returning Connie's flirtatious look.

"That is _quite_ enough!" Ianto cut them off. "Connie, what are you doing here?"

The UNIT courier looked surprised at his anger. "I had a day off, I was in the area. What, I can't even stop by anymore?" she asked, slightly insulted.

"Not when I have company!" Ianto said seriously, eyes wide.

A grin stole back over her face. "What if I want to catch you 'with company?'" She waggled her eyebrows.

"I think you and I are gonna get along just fine," John decided.

"No! No, no! There will be no friends-making today!" Ianto said anxiously. "Connie, you _have_ to go! This is _business_ ," he emphasized.

"Oh," the young woman's enthusiasm faded as she caught on. "Yeah, probably best for me to go, then. Don't want any sort of 'incident', eh?"

"Yeah," Ianto agreed, relieved. "Look, I'll make you that coffee another time, I promise."

"You'd better. I'm sorry I couldn't spend some more time with you, Captain Hart," Connie apologized, pouting cutely.

"That's life," the former time agent shrugged.

Connie left the pastries on Ianto's kitchen counter and left. She called over her shoulder before the door closed, "Give him a good snog for me Yan!"

Ianto covered his face with his hands, letting out a quiet breath of relief and a quick prayer that no one at either UNIT or Torchwood got wind of what had happened. He dropped his arms when he felt strong, calloused hands covering his hips and sliding around to his back. "What are you doing?"

"You heard your girlfriend, give me a snog," the captain grinned devilishly. Before Ianto could say anything, he was pressing his tongue into Ianto's mouth.

When they broke apart Ianto walked into the kitchen quickly, wiping his mouth on his wrist. "She's not really my girlfriend," he started to explain, then stopped. "Wait, how'd you know?"

John smirked. "Maybe it's 'cause I'm wildly intelligent in addition to extremely attractive," he suggested. Ianto glared, and John relented. "You were naked that whole time and she didn't say a word, which means she's used to it."

Ianto looked down in surprise to discover that the captain was right.

"Either that, or I'm just so unbelievably gorgeous she didn't even look at you."

Ignoring him, Ianto turned to the coffee maker and began brewing a good-quality pot. Once the machine was working its magic, a warm hand tugged Ianto's shoulder.

"Mornin'-after regrets?" John asked quietly.

Ianto avoided his eyes. "Somewhat."

"I never saw the point of that," John commented. "It's over and done, so why think about it now? Except in a very, _very_ good sense of remembering."

"I shouldn't have done this," Ianto muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. "This was a mistake."

John was silent for several seconds. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll be gone in a few hours, never have to see me again."

Ianto shook his head. "It's not that. I-" he sighed. "I don't want…"

"Is it Jack?"

"What? No! What?" Ianto blinked, flustered.

"It is, isn't it? Bloody hell, the whole fuckin' universe is after Jack Harkness." John shook his head, jumping up onto Ianto's kitchen stool and relaxing against the counter.

"That's not, I don't- oh _whatever_ ," Ianto gave up.

"You know, he's not that hard to seduce," John rummaged in the bag of pastries and pulled one out. He turned it over a few times, shrugged, and tore off a chunk. "Wear tight clothes for a bit, bend over in front of him, fuck-me eyes and bam! There you are, one randy captain at your service, literally."

"I'd have thought that'd be you," Ianto jibed. He snatched the cinnamon roll out of John's hands. "And that's my favorite, by the way."

John pulled out another from the bag. "I choose my partners a bit more carefully than Jack," he sneered. "That's how I'm still alive. I don't have my own magic regeneration powers, do I?" He rolled his eyes, taking a huge bite from the pastry.

"Magic what?"

John stopped chewing for a moment. "Not important," he said, voice muffled by the food.

Ianto was a bit suspicious, but he let it go. "You don't seem that choosy, you met me on the street."

John grinned. "Are you insulting the repute of the streets in your own country? Shame on you, Eye Candy."

Ianto nearly choked on the cinnamon roll. "What?"

"Eye Candy. Well, you are!" John defended against Ianto's incredulous expression.

" _Never_ call me that again." Ianto checked his microwave clock and sighed. "We should head in."

"Ooh, do we get to drive in together," the captain teased. "What will all the other girls say?"

" _I_ will drive myself in, I don't care how you get there," Ianto clarified. He headed for his bedroom but was stopped by John's hand on his arm.

"Whatever you're worried about, it's not gonna be as bad as you think," the shorter man said comfortingly. "Not much ever is."

"Is that true?" Ianto smiled.

"Of course it's not," scoffed John. "Didn't Jack tell you not to believe a word I say?"

[*]

Jack nearly growled as he watched John flirting with Jones when they came in the Hub. His former partner was in his element, casually joking and teasing and grinning devilishly. Jack could tell he was taking in the security measures of the Hub and looking over their tech as he carried on a conversation, but aside from that he was as relaxed as Jack could ever remember him being. Despite the years that had passed for John, he was still handsome, dangerously so, and Jack couldn't decide how he felt about it.

There was wariness, certainly, for Jones. Lately, Jack could feel himself getting more attached to the young man, even as he tried to hold off. He could tell Toshiko was already taken by the London liaison, they had coffee most mornings and chatted easily, but Jack held off. Each smile he saw from a distance, every helpful comment in the background of the comms only served to make him more sympathetic to Jones and that was something he couldn't handle.

Jack knew it was stupid to care for Jones, the reasons were numerous: Jack would be getting rid of Jones' position as soon as he got some suitable leverage against Yvonne Hartman, Jones would probably have to betray them to the Director to protect himself at some point, or else Jack would have to betray him to protect Torchwood Three. Entrusting Jones with the secret of Flat Holm was a leap of faith, and a bond of loyalty that Jack hoped neither of them would have to break.

But however much his rational brain knew it was a bad idea, he'd gotten a soft spot for Jones at some point. Maybe it was seeing his team's faces at the thoughtful gifts Jones had gotten for them, despite how badly they'd been treating him. Maybe it was Gwen's compassion rubbing off on him, or maybe it was Toshiko's simple entreaties to give the man a chance. Whatever it was, it had led him to this moment, and these feelings.

Jones wasn't safe with John, he knew that. He would be worried about any of his team being in danger from the master con artist. But more than that, this felt like the betrayal he'd been half-expecting: someone he'd been beginning to trust, even to like, becoming more comfortable with his ex-partner, his ex-'in every way', than they ever could be with him. Seeing Jones immediately bond with John Hart like that had felt like a knife in the back, and Jack didn't know when he'd started feeling like there was even anything between them to be betrayed.

"Jones!" he shouted out into the Hub. The Welshman's pale face turned to his office. "Stay in the tourist office 'til the team gets back. I need to speak with John. Alone."

Jones nodded and left quickly, shoulders tight. Jack felt a pang that was half-guilt, half-anger. Maybe the glare was a bit much.

John strutted into his office the way he always walked, in a manner reminiscent of a runway model. Jack suppressed the familiar desire to laugh at his former partner.

"I feel like I'm in the principal's office," John joked as he sat in the wooden chair. "Are you gonna punish me?" he smirked.

Jack sighed. "What's the deal with you and Jones?"

"What, are you jealous Jackie-boy?"

" _Don't_ call me that. What do you want with him?"

John smiled disarmingly. "You can't believe I made a friend?"  
  
"Well he's not dead, so you can forgive me for being confused," said Jack, trying to make the comment bite.

"Ouch, that hurt," John said sarcastically, holding his chest. "Jumpin' to conclusions, are we?"

"This woman, who promised you the diamond," Jack began. "Did you sleep with her?"

"Of course I did, what do you take me for?"

"And is she dead?"

The joking expression vanished and John crossed his arms. Jack was instantly reminded that John was just as good a conman as he was. Even better, since John had no conscience.

"What do you care? He's not one of yours after all, is he?" the other captain asked shrewdly.

"What are you talking about?" Jack glared.

"Oh come on, it's not like it was hard to tell. You're all buddy-buddy with the others, then it's all glares and 'Jones' with him. Which actually makes me change my first impression of your current tastes, that boy is a fine piece of work under the suit," John grinned lasciviously.

Jack gritted his teeth. "He's a spy," he explained. "He's reporting on us to another organization."

John rolled his eyes. "Like you an' me weren't doing the same thing half the time we were together. The kid's a fluke, Jack, give 'im a break."

Jack blinked in surprise at the term from the old code he and John had used when they performed cons together back in the day. Flukeball was a game played by a particularly vicious race of large flying insects. A smaller creature, called a fluke, was tied by a long rope to the top of a pole. It then had to avoid being torn apart by a crowd of the slower predators, but it couldn't get further away from the pole than the length of its rope. Universally, the fluke ended up torn apart by one of the players. Jack and John had used the term as a metaphor for marks that were easy to manipulate or blackmail due to being tied down by family, business or other connections.

"You think?" he asked in surprise. He'd never considered Jones along those lines.

John nodded. "Pictures of family and friends all over the flat, nearly frantic about keepin' work away from the personal life. I'd be surprised if he _hasn't_ considered it before."

Jack was still mulling over John's words when his Vortex Manipulator beeped. He pulled back the flap to check the screen. "Looks like we have something of yours," he said to John.

[*]

"You beautiful, beautiful thing!"

John rushed forward and took the Arcadian diamond from a somewhat annoyed and disheveled Gwen's hands. He held it up to the sunlight and smiled brilliantly.

"What, no 'thank you for stayin' up all night and finding my stupid rock'?"

"Thank you," John said to Gwen, almost sincerely.

"Your turn," Jack commanded. "Leave."

"What, right here, in broad daylight in front of the world?" he gestured around them to the Plass. There were dozens of people in the immediate vicinity, although none of them seemed to notice the small crowd of Torchwood agents standing in their midst.

"I've extended the perception filter using the Rift Maniplulator as control," Tosh explained, not removing her eyes from an energy sensor she'd brought up. "I want to record the patterns as you leave for study."

"You sure know how to make a man feel appreciated," John muttered, punching buttons on the Vortex Manipulator. A portal or orange-red light appeared a good twelve meters away and John walked toward it. Before he reached it, however, he turned around. "Hey Eye Candy!" he called. "Forgot to tell you something!"

Ianto rolled his eyes, but stepped forward, very conscious of the team watching him. "What?" he said as he reached the captain.

"Come here." Ianto didn't trust John's smile, not even a little bit, but leaned forward as if to receive a whisper.

Ianto found himself pulled into a heavy snog. His first instinct was to push away, but, feeling the captain's grin against his lips he gave up and wound him arms around the other man's waist.

Ianto glared into John's eyes an inch away. "You just outed me in front of four people who think I'm a traitor."

"What do you care what they think?" John asked, smirking.

"Seeing as they have a whole Hub full of alien weapons, I think _I_ care what they think!"

"Don't worry," John soothed. "It honestly won't be as bad as you expect." For once, his expression was totally honest. Ianto slowly pressed his lips against John's in a completely chaste kiss.

"Thank you," he said sincerely.

John nodded. "You're welcome."

"Now get out of my country," Ianto shoved him lightly toward the portal.

John gave him a last grin and walked into it. As the light began to pull in on itself, his voice echoed back.

"Maybe next time we can catch up with that blonde of yours!"

Ianto shook his head, grinning. He took a deep breath, and let it go. He took another breath, and turned around to face the team.

Dr. Harper and Gwen were staring at him in complete shock. Captain Harkness just gave him a tired smile.

"That was absolutely amazing!" Toshiko squealed, eyes still locked on her scanner.

Gwen and Dr. Harper burst into laughter, and even the captain spared a few chuckles. Ianto smiled.

"What? What did I miss? Tell me what happened!"

[*]

When Ianto got back to his flat that night and began to take off his suit, he heard an odd crinkle from one of his pockets. Reaching inside, he found a business card for a male escort service. He rolled his eyes.

On the back was an odd message.

_19835-837062-413_

_Don't call unless you're naked or there's a good fight waiting_

Ianto snorted, but programmed the number into his phone with a soft smile.


	27. Chapter 27

After John's visit, Ianto felt lighter. Their brief fling had convinced him that his bisexuality was a real thing, not just some strange reaction to proximity with his gay best friend or some psychological claptrap. He began to feel more comfortable with himself, like he fit in his own skin, and this resulted in a general feeling of happiness.

Tosh invited him to the café the team frequented for lunch one day, something they hadn't done before. After a bit of tentative beating around the subject, she asked him about what had happened with John. He could tell she had an agenda for the discussion, however, and was glad for the insight when careful prompting led her to talk about her own issues with attraction to her own gender. At first, she was understandably awkward, often glancing around as though to make sure no one in the vicinity could hear them. Once they she relaxed, however, they discovered that many of their issues were similar: both had felt that their parents were so homophobic that they had avoided even considering the idea until they had left home. When Ianto confided (all right, gossiped) about a few men who had caught his eye, Tosh reciprocated with a humorous story about a busty brunette at a local video retail for whom she'd become completely tongue-tied. They re-entered the Hub giggling and drew strange looks from Gwen and Owen.

Gwen seemed to take almost an opposite stance, once again avoiding him, although this time it wasn't as overt. Ianto got the impression she was trying not to seem unaccepting, but he noticed that the invitation to go bowling was never brought up again.

As offensive as this could have been, Ianto found it didn't bother him. He'd been able to get used to anger and cruel remarks from Gwen; uncomfortable avoidance was nothing. He was almost expecting Owen didn't act the same way, but a conversation he'd overhead made him reconsider that opinion.

Approaching the Hub from the archives one night before dinner, Ianto heard Gwen speaking furtively. "We don't even know anything about him and Jones was snogging his face off!"

"Jack would've said something if 'e thought Jones would tell Hart anything about us," Owen replied. From the dismissive tone of his voice Ianto guessed he was paying more attention to his video game.

"But-" Gwen sounded surprised. "Don't you think it's wrong?"

There was a pause. "What, 'cause he's gay?"

Alone in the corridor to the archives, Ianto nearly choked on his own air.

"Well..."

"I didn't hear you saying the same thing when you were swappin' saliva with Cerys," Owen said pointedly. Ianto cocked his head. For a moment there, Owen had almost sounded a bit defensive...

"That was different," Gwen protested. "There were alien pheromones!"

"And have you completely forgotten about Jack?" Owen countered. "I know you're not convinced he's gay, but I've see him pull, and let me tell you sweetheart, there's just as many that don't shave their legs as there are ones that do."

"But... that's, that's just Jack! We've seen him flirt with aliens, it's just how he is," Gwen stuttered.

"Exactly," Owen said definitively. Ianto heard a chair squeal as the medic stood up. "So if you're really worried about what's 'wrong,' you've got bigger things to worry about than Teaboy."

When Ianto exited the archives a few minutes later, completely blank-faced, Gwen was still staring off deep in thought.

Interestingly, at least from Ianto's perspective, that night Owen managed a 'Thanks, mate," when Ianto brought his take-away before demanding a soda.

So, overall, Ianto concluded, John was right. His sudden outing didn't have the cataclysmic results he'd feared, and had even perhaps improved his situation overall. The only thing that unsettled him after John's departure was the occasional appraising looks from Captain Harkness that didn't seem sexual, but didn't seem particularly non-sexual either. But then again, with the captain, it could be hard to tell.

Outside Torchwood, things were going great. David and Mica had a vacation from school, and Ianto took a few days off work while the Rift was quiet to be a good uncle and hang out with them.

Ianto finally convinced Connie to go to a club with him. They spent half the time pointing out hot guys to each other and laughing at themselves. When Shay brought his boyfriend Harry up to Cardiff to visit the four of them made a night of it and got thoroughly pissed at a pub.

So, for about three weeks, Ianto was happy. Of course, things get better before they get worse.

[*]

It would figure that he was with the team when he got the call.

Ianto turned away from the team at the conference table to put down the bags of take-away before he said hello quietly. The sounds that then blasted his ear were anything but quiet.

"Rhia? Rhia, calm down. I- I can't talk right now," he tried to explain, glancing at the team. They'd broken off their conversation over lunch and were watching him.

"You're what?" He froze. After listening to her teary explanation, he said quietly, "No, it's fine. I'll be right there. You two stay where you are, I'll pick them up and get them home. It's no trouble." Very conscious of four heavy stares on his back, he lowered his voice. "I love you too."

He hung up and turned around, meeting their questioning eyes with a stiff defensive look. "Could I request the afternoon off, sir?" he said to the captain.

Captain Harkness' eyes tried to interrogate Ianto's. "Is something wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing, sir," Ianto said firmly, hardening his warning expression further.

The team looked to Captain Harkness silently.

"Take tomorrow too, if you need it."

Ianto didn't waste time. He strode out of the conference room.

As he was collecting his things in the tourist office, the door to the Hub opened behind him. Tosh was standing there, looking worried and slightly out of breath.

"Is everything all right, Ianto?" she asked. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Toshiko, thank you for asking," he smiled stiffly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Before she could respond, he was gone.

[*]

When Tosh returned, she was met by three pairs of questioning eyes. "Nothing," she told them. "He wouldn't even admit something was wrong."

"I thought you two were gettin' all buddy-buddy now, you can't get 'im to talk?" Owen questioned.

"I'm not an interrogator, Owen," Tosh glared. "And we've hardly been friends a few weeks. If something serious is going on, he might not want to talk to me about it."

"Well if he was in trouble, then why wouldn't he say something?" Gwen asked, frustrated.

Jack was thinking it over, adding things up in his head and remembering… "Torchwood One."

"What about them?"

"Yvonne Hartman isn't as trusting of her employees as I am," Jack explained. He'd actually been thinking along these lines ever since John had left, and the scene that had just occurred only made him surer than ever that his former partner had been right. "Everyone at Torchwood One is monitored, mail, phones, internet, as a matter of course. I wouldn't be surprised if she used that information against people."

"What does that have to do with the way Jones is acting now?" Gwen asked.

"He might think we'd use whatever it is against him," Owen contributed.

"You mean blackmail our own colleague?" Gwen said in shock. She shook her head. "I can't believe Torchwood London would do that, it's terrible!"

"I've seen worse," Tosh muttered in a rare moment of pique.

"First we need to find out what's going on," Jack interrupted. "Tosh, can you track that call, find out who made it and where they are?"

Tosh nodded and pulled out her palm pilot. Gwen stared at Jack heatedly.

"So you want to do exactly what you just criticized Torchwood One for doing?"

"We're trying to help him," Jack glared at the insubordinate tone.

"By becoming the thing we hate?" Gwen pressed.

"If you can think of a better way, tell it to me now, Gwen."

Immediately, she nodded. "We can _ask_ him what's going on before we invade his privacy."

"Why would he tell us anything?" Owen said cynically. "He probably thinks we're as bad as Torchwood One."

Gwen's eyes widened. "Surely he knows we're nothing like them by now, he's been here six months."

"We haven't exactly been showing him that, have we?" Tosh pointed out quietly.

"That's not our fault!" The Welshwoman defended. "We were only responding to what _he_ did."

"So what is it, Cooper, should he trust us or are we right for hatin' him, and vice versa?"

Gwen shook her head and frowned at the table, trying to see the situation more clearly.

The table lapsed into silence. A few minutes later, Toshiko perked up. "Got it. Rhiannon Davies, call made from the University Hospital."

Gwen gasped. "I remember! Ianto's sister, I think she had some sort of cancer or something."

"Or something?" Owen repeated spitefully.

"It was a long time ago, and not something people like discussin', is it?"

"Tosh, get some more information," Jack ordered, glaring at his other two team members before they started arguing. "Owen's right. I think we'll have to find out for ourselves if we don't want to go into this blind."

[*]

"Uncle Ianto, why isn't Dad picking us up today?" Mica complained from the backseat. "He said we could go to the movies today."

"Your dad's busy. I could take you to the movies," Ianto offered mindlessly. He drove automatically toward his sister's home, but his heart and mind were already at the hospital.

"No! I want to go with Dad!"

"Mica, shut up!" David snapped.

"David, don't talk to your sister like that," Ianto said blandly.

Mica whined but started watching the houses they passed. Ianto sighed.

They were almost at the house when David spoke. "Uncle Yan? I know something's going on."

"What do you mean?" Ianto asked, only half listening.

"Mum and Dad were talking," David said quietly. Ianto noticed the unusually mature tone in his young voice and glanced over. "I heard them. They said we didn't have enough money for her treatment."

"I'll talk to them David, all right? I don't want you to worry about it."

[*]

"Hackin' into medical records," Gwen stood behind Tosh's computer with her hands on her hips. "I will never get used to this."

"Oh my God," the computer genius interrupted. "You guys, you have to see this!"

"What have you got, Tosh?" Jack asked. He and Owen stood next to Gwen, gazing at the screen.

"Rhiannon Davies' medical records. Her cancer, her doctors thought it'd gone into remission. But now it's back," Tosh told them, looking up from her chair with wide, sad eyes.

"Let me see that," Owen muttered. Tosh slipped out of the chair to let him take a closer look.

"That settles it, we have to help him," Gwen decided. "No one should have to go through that on their own."

"How?" Tosh said incredulously. "We've just barely stopped pushing him away after half a year! How are we meant to support him now?"

"Well that'll have to change, won't it!"

"How would you feel if your colleagues were distant from you until they found out someone you loved was ill and _then_ started being nice?" Tosh pointed out. "He'll think we pity him!"

"I think we've got bigger things to worry about than Teaboy's state of mind," Owen called. He spun Tosh's chair around to face them. "I don't think the sister's gonna live that much longer."


	28. Chapter 28

"Ianto! Are the kids at home, are they all right?"

Ianto rushed to hug his sister tightly, avoiding an IV line and a heart monitor. "They're fine, how are you?"

"You got them the babysitter and all?" Rhiannon fretted.

"They're absolutely fine," Ianto assured her. "You think I'd leave them all alone?" he asked, managing a smile.

Ianto looked to his sister's husband Johnny who was holding her hand from the seat next to the hospital bed. "What are they saying?"

Johnny looked like he'd gained ten years since Ianto had seen him last. "It's worse this time," he answered. "They said that it's some rare mutation."

Ianto nodded solemnly and took his sister's other hand. "What are our treatment options?"

Johnny gulped. "There's this experimental thing, that the doctors thought might work. But the NHS doesn't cover it, and without it..." he trailed off. Ianto could see his lower lip trembling.

"Well it's treatable, they said, that's all right then, isn't it?" Ianto said, nodding again to his own words.

The couple shared a look filled with worry. "But that's the thing Ianto," Rhiannon explained. "We haven't got money for the treatment. The insurance won't cover something that's not been properly tested yet, and-"

"Doesn't matter," Ianto said quickly. "We'll get it."

"We can't ask you to-"

"You're my sister, Rhi," Ianto said resolutely. "I don't care how much it costs. I work for the government after all, there's always something," he joked.

Rhiannon tried to smile, but shook her head. "I just want you to know, Yan," she whispered. "In case it doesn't all work out. You're the absolute most amazing brother I could ever have wanted, and I love you so much-" her voice broke.

"Don't talk like that," Ianto told her, lips trembling. "We're going to get through this, all right?" He covered her hand with his free one and met Johnny's eyes over the bed. "It'll all work out, I swear it."

[*]

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Gwen said loudly, looking around at her colleagues, whose faces ranged from stoic (Jack), to closed off (Owen), to apologetic (Tosh). None of them met her eyes.

"Don't we have any alien medical things that can help her?" Gwen asked urgently.

"Yeah, I've got a machine that cures cancer and I've just been saving it for a rainy day-"

"This isn't the time for jokes, Owen!"

"I'm not joking!" Owen shouted. His voice echoed in the empty Hub and Gwen suddenly felt very cold. Owen shook his head violently. "You're the one who's joking, if you think there's anything we can do to help her! Jones is on 'is own," he finished, and stormed out of the Hub.

Tosh watched him pass. "I'm sorry," she said to Gwen. Then she trotted after Owen.

"There must be _something_ we can do," Gwen insisted to her last remaining team member. " _Anything_ we can do to help him! Can't we help them pay for the treatment?" she asked plaintively.

Jack shook his head. "I know we've got all the good equipment, but we don't have that kind of money left over in the budget." He held a deep breath in his cheeks and let it out, giving her a soulful expression when she made a frustrated noise. "I don't know, Gwen, sometimes there's nothing to do."

"Well _I_ am not giving up on this." She strode away determinedly.

Jack watched her go, watched as the cog wheel door rolled back into place and he was left alone in the quiet, empty building. He leaned against the outer wall of his office and looked up into the unoccupied space above the Hub.

[*]

"Hello, my name is Gwen Cooper, I'm calling from Torchwood Three."

"Torchwood Three? Can I have your verification number?"

Gwen listed off the digits from memory, waving away Rhys who was motioning her to bed. "Just a few minutes darling!"

"Ms. Cooper?"

"Oh! Yes, I'm here," Gwen replied, surprised with the speed at which she'd been forwarded.

"Well, you've reached Yvonne Hartman. What can I do for you?"

Gwen frowned, remembering the blonde woman Jack had spoken of with such loathing. She'd never seen the Director of Torchwood One, but from what Jack had said, she ought to have counted herself as lucky. "I wasn't aware I'd be speaking to you, ma'am."

"Oh yes, our interactions so far have been rather unfortunate, have they not?" The woman on the other line said apologetically. "Let's see if we can turn that right around, shall we? What is the purpose of your call?"

Gwen hesitated. "It's about Ianto Jones."

"Yes, Ianto! He's been very good about getting all of Torchwood Three's paperwork in on time," Hartman said amiably. "But am I right to assume this isn't a social call?"

"That's right, ma'am," Gwen answered, beginning to smile optimistically. Perhaps Hartman wasn't as bad as Jack thought. He was sometimes bad at communicating with people, whereas Gwen often managed to talk them over to her point of view: maybe Jack just hadn't given Hartman a chance. "Ianto's sister seems to have taken ill, and she needs a rather expensive treatment."

"That's just terrible!" Hartman said, sounding shocked. "The Torchwood Institute medical plan covers the immediate families of all its employees, price is of no concern to us! Ianto should know that."

"I suppose he's been busy," Gwen justified. "What with makin' arrangements and everything."

"You must be correct. Well, there's no need to worry about that anymore. I'll take care of the insurance myself," the woman said with finality.

"Thank you Ms. Hartman, I'm sure he'll be so pleased to hear it," Gwen smiled.

"Do me a favor dear, and don't mention this to anyone," Hartman asked. "Ianto's so private about things, I'd hate for him to be embarrassed."

"Of course," Gwen agreed.

"Please feel free to call if anything else comes up, Gwen. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

"Are you coming now?" Rhys called.

"Just a minute!" Gwen answered. She set the phone on its cradle, and sat on the couch to think.

Jack must have been wrong about Ms. Hartman, Gwen decided. Someone so generous wouldn't be spying on her employees.

Gwen resolved to be nicer to Jones as well. Whatever the confusion had been regarding the Ghost Machine case, Jack had cleared it up quickly enough, so it must have been just that, confusion. Whatever had passed in the meantime, Gwen knew she could be a bigger person and ignore whatever... tendencies of Jones' that might make her uncomfortable.

Yes, she decided. Helping Jones' sister get her treatment would be the first step toward setting this right.

[*]

"What is it?"

"The doctors said- they said my treatment's been paid for! In full!"

"That's… that's wonderful, Rhi."

"Did you have anything to do with this, Yan? It must have been you!"

"It… was probably just my civil servant's insurance kicking in."

"Whatever it was, we're both so grateful!"

"I am too, Rhi. Look, can I see you tomorrow? I'm got somewhere I really need to be right now."

"All right then. I love you."

"Love you too."

Ianto closed his mobile and placed it on the coffee table. He lay flat on his couch, eyes staring blankly at the darkened ceiling overhead. He knew what had happened.

He'd been bought. The question was, who by?

[*]

"Jones?"

Ianto looked back from the door to Captain Harkness' office. The captain was cradling the freshly made coffee between his hands, but motioned with his chin toward the chair. "Sit down?"

Ianto sat, feeling a bit offset. In the last month, the level of harsh words and glares from the captain had decreased to almost nothing, but they still never spoke beyond requests for paperwork or coffee. The captain's casual summons, almost like those for a friendly conversation, were a bit off-putting.

"Can I be of assistance, sir?" he asked respectfully, resolving to ignore his unease and act normally.

Captain Harkness smiled wryly. "I think that's supposed to be my line."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, sir." Ianto frowned and tried to minimize the way his back tensed up. The captain's, inversely, rested against the back of his chair; it was the closest to a comfortably slump Ianto had ever seen from him.

The captain shifted in his seat. Ianto was surprised to see one of his hands fiddling with a pen, and realized this must be a nervous tell of the captain's.

"You didn't take today off, I see."

"No sir, I didn't need it."

Captain Harkness' blue eyes met his. "Do I get to know why you needed the time off?"

Ianto managed not to clench his jaw while holding the captain's gaze. "It won't affect my performance, sir," he evaded.

"Now that would be a shame," Captain Harkness replied, and even through his best attempt at a straight face the grin that wanted to appear was completely apparent.

Ianto resisted the urge to grind his teeth together.

"Indeed," he said succinctly. "Is that all, sir?" He made to rise.

Ianto nearly flinched when the captain's hand caught his, holding him at the desk. When he looked back the other man's face was serious once again.

"We know something's wrong, Jones," Captain Harkness said intensely. "Whatever news you got yesterday obviously meant trouble."

Ianto's eyes widened slightly as his stomach drew tight with dread. _They knew something was wrong_. _Trouble_. Sure, the _trouble_ was that he'd been mysteriously paid off the night before, and it looked like he'd just found out which of the two branches of Torchwood was behind it.

"We just want you to know that we're here if you need any support."

The near-absence of sleep the night before and the stress of his sister's condition had worn down Ianto's hold on his composure, and he reacted without thinking. His upper lip curled up and he spat, "You've certainly done an excellent job of proving that, _sir_."

He pulled his hand away from the captain's just slowly enough to not be entirely rude and straightened his tie. When he looked back Captain Harkness' expression was still full of surprise and- dare he think it- guilt?

"May I return to my duties now?"

The captain's mouth snapped shut and he cleared his throat briefly. "Yes, Jones."

In a small act of revenge, Ianto closed the door a bit too loudly as he left.

[*]

Jack sat back in his padded swivel chair, fingers laced behind his head. He blew air through his lips that ruffled the hair that was flung over his forehead as he tied to blink himself into understanding the scene that had just taken place.

There was an immediate thought pulsing in the front of his mind, but Jack ignored it until he'd considered everything fully, even though his intuition screamed that it was right.

If it was, he might not handle it right now.

He'd never seen Jones express emotion like that. His rarely seen frustration included clenching fists and lots of sighs, anxiety was slightly widened eyes and extreme correctness of motion, sadness was drooping eyes and extra coffee. Jack had never seen him _mad._

But he had been. And the worst part was, he had reason to be.

Ever since John had left with his warning about the young man, Jack had been reconsidering the label he'd afforded the London liaison. He'd been so wrapped up in being angry at London in general for their policies against aliens, he'd forgotten that they barely treated their own with any more trust or respect. For every extraterrestrial who'd been experimented on or killed in the name of Queen and Country, a human who had fallen through the Rift, been affected by some artifact or mutated by a supernatural force had been mistreated just as much. Yvonne Hartman was a control freak who didn't want anything to be done without her approval, and was paranoid of leaks and conspiracies. More than that, she knew that control was the key to the world and Jack knew she was not above using blackmail, bribes or threats.

So was he really surprised that Jones wouldn't tell him about his sick sister? Especially when their situation seemed to be so conclusively awful anyway.

'He really thinks we'll use his dying sister against him,' Jack thought in shock. How had this happened? He admitted to himself that he would not be above blackmail if it were necessary, but only if the situation absolutely demanded it, and only against those who deserved it. Jones was not one of those people, no matter what bureaucracy he was from.

During Jones' time with Torchwood, Jack had gone from actively hating the young man, to grudgingly accepting him, to respecting him enough to keep him at a distance. He honestly thought it was for Jones' own good that he not become part of the Cardiff team. But Jack was vaguely horrified that he and his team had been so awful to their somewhat-colleague as to convince him that they would sink so low in order to gain his loyalty over Torchwood London.

Was that the sort of picture had they been presenting this whole time? Morally bankrupt mastermind traitors?

Jones was right. They'd never shown him anything to indicate he could rely on them, but Jack hadn't realized that they'd been this bad. He'd thought they were just being alienating, not… terrible, Gwen had said earlier.

Jack let out a shuddering breath. The powerful thought that had been waiting in the wings crashed over him, leaving the icy feeling of cold hard truth in its wake.

He was no better than Yvonne Hartman.


	29. Chapter 29

" _The way she looks at you, with those eyes, she's like an animal."_

"… _I wanted to throw up."_

"Then the machine was uncovered…"

"…touched its surface I could feel it."

Tosh shivered, bombarded by voices, both physical and mental. Who could she trust?

"… _heard of this race, in the London archives. They live for religion and religious war, there's not a drop of love in them."_

"…my beautiful Toshiko…"

" _She's lying to manipulate Toshiko. My God, poor Toshiko, can't let her…"_

" _I've gotta go for it!"_

Tosh was frozen. Owen lunged, grabbed Mary around the throat in a chokehold. Moving faster than Tosh could see, Mary hit him twice ( _"Bitch!"_ ) and was suddenly holding Tosh with a knife to the throat.

"Let her go!"

"Mary!"

"Let her go, Toshiko-"

"Toshiko, tell them to give me the transporter."

"I can't bear it," Tosh cried against the echoes of thoughts and emotions pounding against her head. She couldn't think, not with this…

" _Ridiculous, we're…"_

" _...careful captain, she's got no remorse. She'll kill Toshiko in an instant if you don't…"_

"… _incisors on the blade, it'll tear Tosh's throat out."_

"You, how's this? I'll exchange Toshiko for that one! Your choice!"

_"What the- why's she askin' me, I can't pick a teammate!"_

"Just- put the knife down."

"Did you hear him? He didn't want to, did he?"

" _She's brainwashed Toshiko!"_

" _-the fuck has this psycho told Tosh about me-"_

" _What happened, did he not want to?"_

"Please stop!"

"That's what they think of you, that's who you've been working with for all these years!"

"It's not true, Tosh. Don't listen."

"…not me! Whatever I've done it doesn't change the way I feel about you. We have a connection, Toshiko. Something real."

" _Liar."_

It felt like an impermeable wall had just slipped open like a bookcase from a wall exposing a secret room, and suddenly Jack was there inside her head as well, his mind racing but calm, and she regained a measure of control.

" _Toshiko? Don't move. Don't do anything until I say."_

"Okay. You want the transporter? We want Toshiko. I think that's a fair exch-"

" _I've been trained for this, hostage situations. Think, Gwen, th-"_

" _Please, please take it. Anything to save Tos-"_

" _He's just gonna give it up an' let her go! She deserves to be punish-"_

" _It's a bluff, that thing can't still work. I hope to God she doesn-"_

Tosh was shoved away. The moment the knife was away from her throat, she rushed toward the relative safety of her teammates.

The feelings and thoughts of Mary, Gwen, Owen and Ianto were crashing into her brain. _Fear, success,_ _pity, anger, worry, excitement, adrenaline, compassion, lust, relief, rage, protectiveness, empathy…_

A huge burst of light distracted Tosh from drowning in the extreme strength of everyone's emotions. Mary was engulfed in light and gave a horrible gasp. The transporter shot upwards toward the ceiling and disappeared.

"Sort of now," said Jack victoriously.

"What did you do?" Tosh pleaded. "Where did she- has she gone home?"

"I reset the coordinates," Jack told her matter-of-factly.

"Where to?" She knew, that look on his face, so smug, so cruel. It always meant-

"To the center of the sun. It shouldn't be hot, I mean, we sent her there at night and everything."

" _Not we, you bastard."_

Tosh bit her lip, holding in a sob.

"You killed her."

"Yes." Jack said viciously. It looked like he was smirking as he walked away.

" _Well, that was unnecessary."_

" _Poor Tosh, I can't believe Jack would_ say _that to her-"_

"… _I mean, should I say something, I'm not good with cryin' wom-"_

Tosh tore the pendant off her neck.

[*]

"Did you hear anything good from Jack at least?"

By mutual agreement, anytime the three of them got together for an evening or an afternoon they ended up in Tosh's flat, since Owen's was practically empty and Gwen's had a boyfriend in it. The three of them were sitting on the tech's soft carpet in front of her TV. Tosh and Gwen were eating ice cream and Owen had a beer. Tosh didn't need a mind-reading pendant to know that Gwen had forced the medic to come.

"Nothing," Tosh answered. "It was like he was dead. I couldn't get anything from him at all."

"I can't believe this," Gwen sat back against a couch. "I've been here eight months and I still don't know my own boss' real name."

"What I want to know is, what did you hear from us?" Owen asked, pointing at Tosh with the neck of his bottle.

Tosh shrugged. "Nothing too serious. I know Gwen's boyfriend is making her a big dinner this weekend and gives great backrubs, and I learned more than I ever wanted about the sort of girls _you_ hang out with, Owen." If she hadn't been so tired, she might have been embarrassed, but finding out the truth about Mary…

"Oh, do tell," Gwen urged, laughing.

"Oi! None of that! You know, this is an invasion of privacy, it is!"

"I just wanted to know if she was right. I'm sorry." Tosh looked up at them from beneath her eyelashes.

Gwen patted her knee comfortingly. "What did she say?"

"That none of you cared for me, you all pity me. Textbook stuff," Tosh nodded.

"Well, don't believe any of it," Owen said, draining his drink and reaching for another. "Because you? You're irreplaceable."

Tosh's tired heart gave a little glow.

"What about Jones?" Gwen asked. "Get anything interestin' off him?"

"I don't know," Tosh said, furrowing her brow. "It was really weird. I mean, he was worrying a lot about his sister, which is understandable," the others nodded, "but he was really leery around Jack."

"Captain Obvious strikes again, I bet; he's probably just afraid Jack'll try to grope 'im or something."

"I don't think so Owen, it was more than that. It was like he was afraid, almost, like Jack did something, or he thought he would do something," Tosh pondered. "One time, I heard him thinking 'How much does a man cost?'"

"What?" Gwen squinted, shaking her head. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea," Tosh admitted.

"You know, if you'd got anything personal from me, I'd probably be really offended," Owen commented.

"It's a good thing nothing bad happened then, eh?" Gwen said brightly, trying to cheer them up. "Just be happy it's all over and done with."

"Yeah," Tosh muttered as the conversation moved on. "Nothing bad at all."

[*]

Tosh came into work the next morning quiet and pensive. She planned to bury herself in one of her projects as soon as possible, once she finished that list for UNIT, of course.

Head down, she walked into the tourist office and headed for the door to the Hub, mind already beginning to recuperate as she pondered her next project. When the door didn't open, she looked toward the desk.

Ianto was standing near the button to open the door, but he was looking at her a bit anxiously. "I just wanted to say, I-" he straightened himself up, smoothing down his suit, "I know I can't understand how you feel, but. I am sorry about Mary," he said sincerely.

"What do you mean?" Tosh asked, the tiniest amount of bite in her voice: none of the others had been sorry about Mary. "She's gone, it's over."

"You cared for her. Whether she was an alien or not, you must be hurting now that she's dead." He paused for a few seconds and bit his lip. Tosh waited until he was ready to speak.

"I know I haven't been the best friend the last week-"

"Not at all Ianto, you've had a lot to worry about!" Tosh interrupted, immediately trying to assure him. She nearly gasped at her own mistake when Ianto stared at her.

"What would you know about that?" he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

Tosh backpedaled, trying to think of a way to say 'We know your sister is dying because I hacked your private files' without admitting anything. "Just... you've been going home early and looking a bit unhappy..." She trailed off.

Slowly, Ianto relaxed. "Well, I just wanted to say, I'm here to talk if you need it. I can't emphasize with losing a lover, but I've been told I'm a good listener."

Tosh smiled. "Thank you, Ianto."

He nodded smartly and pressed the button to open the door to the Hub. Tosh went to leave, but she felt too guilty.

"Ianto!" He looked up. "I... We figured it out, from the phone call, and I heard your thoughts," she said in a rush, apology coloring her speech. "I'm sorry about your sister," she offered. Stuttering a little, she continued. "Gwen wanted to help pay for the treatment, but Jack said there wasn't the money in the budget. I looked for myself to see if I could shift anything, but it's just not there."

Ianto's face remained impassive but Tosh could see him swallow hard. "Thank you," he said slowly.

Tosh nodded and gave him a last apologetic look before walking through the passage. The door closed behind her as she left.

Why had Ianto seemed so suspicious and angry? And was it connected to the strange thoughts she'd heard from him? Tosh's analytical mind struggled to fit the pieces together. Maybe a bit more research…

[*]

"Ianto! I'm so glad I could reach you!"

"Ms. Hartman," Ianto said tightly. He gripped the phone in his right hand, waved away Connie's questioning look with his right.

"Oh, please, we're on first-name terms by now, aren't we?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am."

"I'd like to think we are, Ianto."

"Get to the point, _Yvonne_. What do you want?"

Connie knelt up on the sofa, looking on in concern.

A sigh. "I'd hoped you would be a little more reasonable about this."

"I am being reasonable. A clean trade. What do you want?"

Ianto raised his eyes to the ceiling in silent prayer when he heard the demand.

"And if I refuse?"

"I think you know what will happen then."

"Humor me."

"It would be a shame if your 'civil insurance' fell through, wouldn't it? Even worse if your sister's husband lost his job and couldn't find another."

Ianto closed his eyes and let out a breath as quietly as he could. "It'll take a few days, so I don't raise any suspicions."

"That's fine. But we'll know if you change your mind. Don't force us to take any additional action."

Ianto hung up.

"What the hell was that?" Connie asked, looking honestly frightened.

"What do you think?" Ianto asked sarcastically, getting off the couch and going to the kitchen. He _needed_ alcohol.

"It sounded like… I don't know," Connie trailed after him. "Like in the movies, industrial espionage or something. Ianto!" she jumped in front of him. "How serious is this?"

"Deadly serious."

"We can call UNIT. If Torchwood can't help you, they can."

Ianto rubbed his face with his hand. "Just what I need, another over-suspicious organization with an agenda. You can't tell them," he said intensely, taking Connie by the upper arms. "You can't tell _anyone_ ," he insisted.

"If I have suspicion of an incident involving members of Torchwood I am duty-bound as an operative of UNIT to report it immediately," Connie told him, eyes begging him to be reasonable.

Ianto tightened his hands. "You can't," he growled.

"Ianto?" Connie said warningly. "Let go."

"Promise me you won't tell!"

"Let go of me!"

She struggled. Ianto held her still. "This is my _family_ , Connie. I'm sorry, but I can't let you tell. I will do _anything_ to keep them safe."

[*]

"Jack? I've found something odd."

Jack looked up from the unending pile of forms for UNIT, grateful for the distraction. Sometimes he felt like those guys had it out for him. "What's up?"

"I looked into Rhiannon Davies' treatment, just out of curiosity," she clarified as Jack's eyebrows rose questioningly, "and there's something I think you should see."

"It's right here," Tosh led the way to her computer station. Jack glanced around to ensure that the Hub was empty. When he looked back, Tosh was pointing at a long list of numbers on the screen. Jack squinted.

"I'm sorry Tosh, what does that mean?"

"It's a trail. That number is Yvonne Hartman's private bank account. _That_ is where the money for the cancer treatment is coming from."

Jack shook his head slowly. "That's unusual, but easily explained. She could be paying for it personally. It's not very professional, but Yvonne's got a lot of reasons for doing things that she keeps to herself."

"I think you're right about one thing. I think there's a secret motive." Tosh switched screens. "This is the trail I had to go through to find that bank account."

This screen was made of a flow chart instead of a list of numbers, and Jack's eyes widened. "What's that department there?" He indicated one part of the screen.

Tosh double-clicked, bringing up a title page, which Jack read out. "COMPASS? What's that?"

"It seems to be Torchwood London black ops," Tosh said, voice lowered in excitement. "I've actually been trying to hack in for months during my spare time, but I could never find the right angle to attack from. The bank transfer got me right in," she smiled smugly.

"Tosh, I don't want you doing anything dangerous," Jack warned.

"They won't catch me," Tosh said firmly. "Not a chance."

"So, Jones is being paid off by Yvonne's black ops account," Jack summarized. "That's interesting, but it doesn't tell us much."

"That's what the rest is for. These are Ianto's phone records for the past few days," Tosh pulled up another window. "He's gotten a call straight from Yvonne's office at the Torchwood Tower every night at nine-thirty on the dot for three days."

"Keep going."

"I read through the summaries for COMPASS's major operations. Ianto's been spending extra time in the archives the last few days, doing dozens of searches on the same topic as a COMPASS project."  
  
"What's that?" Jack asked, feeling they were about to make a breakthrough.  
  
"The complete history of Captain Jack Harkness. It's all about you, Jack."


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more after this, folks!

One more day, one more day, Ianto told himself. One more day until he would hand over the information and his debt would be paid.

Ianto had felt like every eye in the Hub was on him for three days as he served coffee, cleaned desks, handed out paperwork and listened to investigations. The heavy-duty USB drive he was using to store the data burned a hole in his pocket. He wanted to scream with tension.

They think I was spying like this every day? Ianto asked himself disbelievingly. How could anyone live like this for seven months? I can barely manage a few days!

The information itself was shocking. Captain Harkness seemed to have been around for a hundred years, if the records were to be believed. Ianto was inclined to think they were forged, but he remembered what John had said while he was in Cardiff, 'magic regeneration powers'. If the records were accurate, the captain had lived through two world wars and nine leaders of Torchwood Three before the previous leader had murdered the whole team the night of the new millennium.

Ianto was amazed by the depth of experiences listed in the archives. The captain had led undercover operations, flown fighter planes, he'd even served on one of the first submarines! And Ianto found a marriage certificate and a death announcement for the captain's wife, not to mention a picture of him with a beautiful young girl that seemed to be from the nineteen forties. The man in the picture gazed at the girl with so much feeling in his eyes that Ianto had sat down and just stared at the photograph for a while.

In those three days, Ianto had spent hours thinking hard on the results of his actions. He knew what Yvonne was capable of- he'd known it the whole time he'd worked for London, but no one got out from under Yvonne's thumb. Ianto knew that if he handed over this information, Yvonne would be able to blackmail Jack just as badly as she had Ianto himself.

Then he'd remember his sister's body, shaking and pale from the chemotherapy. He could see her in the hospital bed, tubes piercing her body. He could imagine the eyes of her children leaking tears as they stood without understanding before the casket of their mother, just as Ianto had so many years ago. After imagining those things, what was the fate of Captain Jack Harkness, his somewhat boss and stupid crush? Harkness was a grown man, and he had magical regeneration powers anyway. He would have to take care of himself and his own, just like Ianto.

God, that didn't help at all. The guilt was eating at him. How the hell could he justify this? Yvonne wasn't likely to stop at one demand, she'd make more. He knew it. But what choice did he have?

" _We can call UNIT. If Torchwood can't help you, they can."_

Ianto rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt horrible for what he'd done to Connie, but he couldn't have let UNIT find out, he trusted them even less than Torchwood Three. He'd considered telling the captain, but what would he do? Leave Rhiannon to die like Yvonne would, claiming he couldn't help Ianto with the treatment? Or would he say Ianto deserved what had happened and execute him for treason?

Ianto sighed. This was getting him nowhere. He stood up, collecting the USB device and tucked it into his pocket and ascended several flights of stairs to the Hub.

Just before the entrance to the main area, Ianto straightened his tie with shaking hands. He swallowed and pasted a genial look on his face, then stepped out.

"Where is everyone?" he asked Toshiko, the only one on the platform.

She didn't look at him. "They're at lunch, I'm just going myself. Jack wants to see you in his office."

Ianto's pulse sped up by about a thousand percent. "Do you know why?" he managed to say mildly.

Toshiko didn't answer. She finished whatever she was typing and flicked off her monitors. She met Ianto's eyes once as she gathered her coat and Ianto could see an apology there.

She brushed past him and left.

Ianto slowly approached the captain's office, feeling like he was walking toward the hangman's rope, or off a plank or something. He almost laughed. Who was he kidding? Rhiannon was the one who would suffer, and Johnny and the kids. Ianto deserved whatever he would get for his betrayal and for his failure.

He closed the door behind him. The captain was typing on his computer, not looking at Ianto.

He sat down in the hard wooden chair, and waited.

[*]

Jack waited.

What did the boy think he was going to do? Jack's advanced senses could smell the fear pouring off Jones, could hear the increase in his breathing rate, the catch in his throat. Was he really that afraid of Jack?

Then again, shouldn't he be? If the Welshman had gone through Torchwood records, he'd know how Jack dealt with traitors: hard, fast, and without mercy. In Jack's world, there was no room for a man he couldn't trust.

But this was different. Jack could forgive betrayals for love, for family. It wasn't like Jones had lied, had hidden himself for money, or prestige, ambition, any selfish thing. His family had been held hostage, used against him, and Jack could forgive almost anything for that.

Not to mention… he'd been thinking. Watching. The dozens of things Jones did for them, extra things, beyond the job description. He covered Owen's paperwork when the medic was too hung-over to complete it. Gwen always had a fresh supply of her favorite chocolate sweets in her desk, and she hadn't seemed to realize why she never ran out. Jack himself sometimes found paperwork unexpectedly completed on his desk when he hadn't prepared for a meeting with one official or another, neatly written in the Welshman's precise handwriting. When Jack had lowered his mental barriers to communicate with Toshiko while Mary was holding her hostage, Jack had felt Jones' protectiveness for the Japanese woman, the fear for her safety almost as strong as if it were for himself. Not to mention that time when he'd first started, when he'd tackled a Weevil to protect her.

The realization that Jones could find it in himself to be so compassionate and generous, despite the way they'd treated him, was an eye-opening experience for Jack. He felt the same way he had when Gwen had appeared out of the blue and fit into their team: like he was discovering the real meaning of humanity all over again. Except this time, the person who'd made him see these things had been right in front of him for months, ignored and pushed away from the team he served so faithfully. Jack felt awful.

Now, though, was not the time to make those feelings known.

He looked up.

"How're things in the archives?" Jack said lightly.

Jones blinked. "Fine, sir?" he said tentatively. Jack could see the fast motion of Jones' jugular under his neck.

He gave a smile that he knew from experience served to make people more nervous rather than less. "I'm giving you an opportunity here, Jones. Use it wisely."

Jones' jaw tightened. His face set into a bland expression that Jack was very familiar with. It was the face that was shown most of the time when handing out food, listening politely to the team… cleaning around the edges of the Hub while they laughed on the platform.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, sir. If you don't mind, I need to open the tourist office in a few minutes. Is there anything else?"

Jack's grin widened. If he didn't know better, he _might_ have believed that performance.

"There is, Jones. Why have you been checking up on me?"

[*]

Oh God, he _knows_.

I'm dead. My sister's dead.

[*]

"Curiosity, sir."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Fine. I can understand that you're not in the mood to be forthcoming, so I might as well tell you: Toshiko found out about the payment for your sister's treatment. We know what Yvonne is making you do."

Damn, Jones had a good poker face.

"We can help you," he said quietly, leaning over the desk. He willed Jones to give up. "We can pay for your sister's treatment, you don't have to do this!"

"Can you protect her from the Director of the Torchwood Institute?" Jones asked in such a low voice that he had to strain to hear it. "Can you protect my niece and nephew, my brother-in-law? His family? Can you protect my girlfriend, who works for UNIT? My friends who still work at the Tower?" He didn't meet Jack's eyes.

"Yes!" Jack hissed, watching Jones look up in amazement. "I can do all of that." He didn't breathe as hope flared in Jones' expression, only to slowly fade.

"And switch one debt for another," Jones whispered.

Jack shook his head, holding Jones' eyes, trying to hold his faith in place as well. "I'm not like that. _We_ , Torchwood Three, are not like that, not while I have a say in the matter. I will never use this against you."

"Perhaps not intentionally. But how could I ever say no to you when I'm both in your debt and under your thumb?"

Jack swallowed. Those blue-gray eyes opposite him were so hard, so defiant. How could he win the confidence of someone so defensive?

"You trust me," he replied, forcing his voice to match Jones' intensity. "You trust that I am not like her and you trust that I would do anything for my team."

" _Am_ I part of your team?" Jones retorted. Jack took a breath.

"If you let me help you, you'll never have to answer to London or Yvonne again."

Jones' gaze took a long time to look over Jack's face. The immortal could hardly breathe. He didn't know when he'd invested so much in this inscrutable man, but it was done.

After far too long, Jones nodded. "Do it."

Jack sat back in his chair and flipped open his waiting cell phone, hitting a number he'd programmed in readiness for Jones' answer.

"Yvonne?"

[*]

Ianto's hands, out of the captain's sight behind the desk, were curled into shaking fists. That was the only reason he's been able to keep a blank face and stop himself from bursting into tears or screaming at the man.

He nearly shouted for Captain Harkness to stop when he'd realized who he was calling, but he held his tongue. Surely he wasn't going to turn him in, break his word immediately after making it?

"Yeah, it's Jack. I've got a proposition for you. How about you let Ianto Jones come work for me, _completely_ for me, none of this 'liaison' crap, and stop holding his sister's treatment over his head?"

"Nah, I figured it out myself. You should really be more careful with how you blackmail people. I think your technique could use some work," Captain Harkness grinned.

Did he really need to flirt at a time like this?

"Or else I'll go to the Queen with those 'special projects' you're using COMPASS for. Some of those pictures were pretty nasty Yvonne, I don't think it would take that long for her to write out a warrant for your arrest."

The man could rob a bank with that voice alone, wouldn't even need a weapon. For God's sake, who is he?

"That should be about it."

Ianto practically leaped over the desk. Captain Harkness looked surprised when Ianto grabbed a pen and scribbled madly on a scrap of paper, but when he shoved it under the captain's nose, he understood.

"And if anything happens to Jones' family, friends, neighbors or the kid he went to third form with, you will answer to me."

The captain smiled. With teeth.

"See you at the annual, Yvonne."

He hung up.

Ianto swallowed. The world suddenly felt very still and quiet. Weightless. "I can't even begin to thank you, sir," he whispered.

The captain looked up from momentary contemplation of his desk. "I told you, there's no debt here. But you know what would be nice?"

Ianto's face fell, along with his stomach. He'd known there would be some catch.

"I'd really like it if you'd start calling me Jack. And maybe I could call you Ianto?"

He blinked in surprise. "I- um. That would be fine."

Captain Harkness- no, Jack now, smiled. A real, happy smile. A smile that said 'I'm so glad you're here.'

"Well then, Ianto. Let's catch up with the rest of the team for that lunch."


	31. Chapter 31

Connie was woken up at a truly despicable hour by knocking on the door of her hotel room.

"Bloody manager, if the UNIT credit card didn't go through I'm gonna bloody throttle whatever sorry accountin' officer gets in my way," she mumbled as she tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the hotel door.

"Shouldn't even be in a bleedin' hotel, fuckin' Torchwood imbecile, who the hell does he think he is," she swung open the door.

"Are those supposed to make everything better?" she demanded.

Ianto looked down at the bouquet of daisies. "No, but I know you like them."

She let him in, because she wasn't about to be having this conversation vertical. "What the _hell_ do you call this sort of hour?"

He frowned. "It's nearly ten. What do you call it?"

"I call it too bloody fuckin' early," Connie moaned as she collapsed face-down on the hotel bed.

Ianto chuckled. "Late run?"

"I gogh ey ad bime."

"What?"

She rolled over. "I got in at five."

"Sorry."

She refused to open his eyes and see the puppy-dog face that was sure to be there. "As if that's what you should be apologisin' for."

There was silence.

Connie sat up. Ianto was sitting on the edge of the bed, letting the flowers droop toward the ground. With his head dropped and his eyes tearing, he was the picture of misery. "What is it, what's wrong?" she asked, suddenly worried. "Did the industrial espionage end badly? Are you okay?"

Ianto snorted. "Yeah, it's fine. That's not why…" He shook his head. "I can't apologize for how I treated you. I was… violent. I threw you out of the flat! It's unforgiveable." He sniffed.

"Just tell me why you did it," she said quietly.

"That phone call… it was Yvonne Hartman," Ianto told her solemnly.

"…Yeah, I got that from the way you said her name. Go on."

Ianto swallowed. "She wanted me to steal information from Torchwood Three, or she'd stop paying for Rhiannon's treatment."

Connie gasped. "Your sister? Is she all right?"

Ianto nodded hurriedly. "Yeah, she's fine. Capta- Jack helped," he gave a little smile. "I don't have to worry about her anymore."

"So, your colleagues know they don't have to worry about you spyin' and reportin' back anymore?" Connie clarified.

"Jack's gonna explain it to them, he told me."

Connie took a minute to consider. On the one hand, Ianto had been a bit aggressive with her, and she was _not_ one to take that lying down. But she did know that Ianto was a gentle soul and she could tell he felt honestly guilty. The circumstances, she decided, were enough to excuse him getting over-excited.

"Don't _ever_ do something like that again or I'll tear your dick off," she said decisively.

Ianto nodded fervently. "I won't, I swear."

Slowly, she smiled. "That's that then."

They sat in silence for another moment, before Connie decided to put it behind them. "So you're on first name terms with the captain now, eh?" she nudged his elbow and smirked suggestively.

"It's nothing like that," Ianto blushed. "He just helped with Rhiannon's treatment... and, he may have asked me for dinner on Tuesday."

"I knew it!" Connie laughed. "I knew you'd get the guy eventually. God, if only my life was a Disney story too!"

Ianto snorted, shaking his head. "Don't call me a princess, I take offence to that." Connie just laughed harder.

He turned so his body was facing her on the bed. "I came here to beg forgiveness and you made me smile."

"That's because I'm the best, and you'd better not forget it again."

Ianto nodded solemnly. "If I make you my best coffee whenever you ask for it, am I forgiven?"

Connie considered. "Hmm, I don't know," she grinned slowly. "I may require more payment." She indicated her suitcase next to the room's closet. "I'm running low on spring clothes."

"That how it is, eh?" Ianto asked. "I've gotta pay you back with a shopping spree?"

Connie giggled. "Why do you think I keep you around?"

"I thought it was for the coffee."

"No, it's definitely the groveling. There's gonna be a lot of grovelin' going on, a _lot_."

"I surrender myself to the groveling," Ianto grinned. "Let the groveling begin."

[*]

"So, you _blackmailed_ London for the Teaboy."

"Basically, yeah."

"So, I can stop harassin' him and start… hazin' him?"

"Owen… yeah, I guess."

[*]

"That awful woman! I knew there was something about her!"

"Gwen, this is serious. Did you have contact with Yvonne in the past month?"

"Well, I called her to ask for help with Ianto's sister, but- Oh my God. This is my fault, isn't it?"

"No Gwen, she-"

"Oh my God, this is my fault! _I_ did this! I helped her blackmail him, oh my God!"

"She would have found a way to get what she wanted either way. Gw- Gwen!"

"I'm so sorry, I can't believe-"

"Gwen!"

"What?"

"You can't blame yourself. Look, you tried to help. It didn't work out, but this is why you have a team, that you talk things over with. If you'd asked me, I would have told you why that was a bad idea."

"I'm so sorry Jack. I had no idea this could happen."

"You'll learn from this, won't you? You'll try to work better as a team?"

"I swear it, I will."

[*]

"Did it work?"

"Yeah, it worked. You were brilliant, by the way, finding those secret projects to use against Yvonne. And transferring her own money to our account to pay for the treatment! You know, you're quiet most of the time, but it's thinks like this that really speak loudly."

"It wasn't hard. I just checked what else she'd used that account for."

"It was still absolute genius. I didn't tell Jo-Ianto that it was you, like you said. I still don't know why you're insisting on being left out of it."

"A wise man once told me that you should give someone a gift to make them happy, not to receive recognition yourself."

[*]

"So, now what?"

"What do you mean, now what?" Owen asked, digging into a carton of Chinese food. "Now we can stop lookin' over our shoulders, wonderin' if every mistake's bein' written down and counted against us."

"I mean, how do we act around him now?" Gwen persisted, setting down her chopsticks. "I've gotten so used to not talkin' to him, it's a habit. I don't know how to be nice to him anymore."

"I think that makes us bullies," Tosh commented. She got up from the table and went to her kitchen for more white wine.

Gwen sat for a moment, dumbstruck. "I suppose it does," she said slowly.

Owen looked up a few moments later. "Are you kidding me?"

She wiped a few stray tears away. "What? I never thought I'd end up like this. I was always the nice one."

Owen rolled his eyes. "Things change."

"What if I don't want them to change?"

"Then you work for it," Tosh said fiercely. Her teammates looked up to see her standing next to the table, face dark with anger. "What we've done, we have to fix. Jack's already trying to make it up to him, just being friendly, and we have to do the same!"

"But _how_?" Gwen asked.

"Just… be nice to him! Ask him about his day, include him in the conversation, I don't know, what do you do for Owen or me?"

"Nah, chatterin' at him won't help any."

"Owen, for once in your life, will you sh-"

"Enough!"

Owen looked up from his food and Gwen stared, wide eyed. Tosh blushed.

"Excuse me," she said, more quietly. "We just have to start treating him like a human being, instead of letting him be the guy who cleans up our messes and never gets thanked."

Gwen sighed. "We don't know anything about him. Not really."

"That's the point," Tosh told them both. "We have to learn."

[*]

Jack dressed himself in a dark black suit and a blue dress shirt the color of his greatcoat. He went to tie his neatly patterned tie in the mirror and nearly laughed when he saw the slight tremble in his hands.

'Captain Jack Harkness, nervous for a date!' Jack shook his head. He couldn't believe he was doing this.

The last two days had been busy sorting out Ianto's transfer to Torchwood Cardiff. While most of that had been paperwork, there had also been the issue of Ianto's family. The former liaison had insisted on taking the bare minimum in assistance, saying that the money that wasn't going toward Rhiannon's treatment ought to be worked into the Cardiff budget. It had taken a good deal of persuasion on Jack's part, and, in the end, a command to stop being so stubborn, to convince Ianto that his sister's family should also receive monthly assistance toward Mica and David's schooling and the family's housing. Ianto had said that Rhiannon might be tentative to move out of their childhood home, but that they could definitely be in a better neighborhood.

Jack couldn't believe how much had changed in the last two days. When Tosh had told him about Yvonne's blackmail, he hadn't been surprised, knowing her, but it wasn't until he recalled the way Ianto had guiltily jumped at his approach for the three days before that the situation truly hit him.

He'd thought this Jones was a nice enough man, like Gwen had said back at the beginning. He hadn't realized that he was honestly a good person, who was aware and regretful of what he was being made to do. It had taken careful consideration before he'd decided to offer Ianto a position in his own branch of Torchwood, and not just set him up in UNIT or some other organization.

Then, when he'd confronted Ianto, he knew for sure that having Ianto as part of his team was the right thing to do. The Welshman shocked him by only negotiating for the lives of his family and friends, not asking what his own punishment would be for committing treason despite the fact that Jack could feel the fear radiating from the young man. Staring into Ianto's eyes and watching as his faith was stretched to the very limit had been a heart-pounding experience, and Jack came out of it feeling truly blessed by the gift of Ianto's trust.

While they'd discussed the changes to Ianto's situation, including the option of field training and precautions against backlash from Yvonne, that feeling only increased. Jack felt increasingly fond of the Welshman as they became more relaxed in each others presence. Ianto began to laugh and smile more. His wit and intelligence began to show themselves along with the kind of compassion and genuine caring Jack had noted earlier, but without the pigheadedness and lack of self-awareness that distinguished Gwen's particular flavor of humanity. Jack was increasingly convinced that… that he definitely _had_ to ask Ianto out. Not just bed him, as he might have planned when Ianto joined Cardiff, but honestly court him. Because this man was special.

Jack picked up the small bouquet of carnations he'd picked out, checked his reflection one last time in the mirror, took a deep breath and left the Hub.

[*]

"Wait, you mentioned a girlfriend in UNIT?"

Ianto raised his eyebrow. "Did you just remember that now, sir?"

Jack wagged his finger. "Ah ah ah, what did we say?"

"Did you just remember that now, _Jack_?"

"Better. And yes, I sort of had more important things on my mind."

"Quite," Ianto agreed, twirling his fork in a plate of pasta. "And she's not my girlfriend."

Jack swallowed a piece of garlic bread in one bite which was so big that it really shouldn't have even fit in his mouth. "Then, why'd you say she was?" he asked, before taking a giant gulp of wine.

Ianto cringed at the mistreatment of the good quality food. "She's a good friend."

"A good friend who you tell people is your girlfriend," Jack remarked shrewdly.

Ianto shrugged and looked out the window. Cardiff Bay at night was alight with boats, car headlights, the windows of buildings. The stars were out on a rare clear night.

"If I had a girlfriend," Ianto said by way of explanation, "would I be on what seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a date with you?"

It was hard to tell in the candlelight, but it looked like Jack might be blushing. "This isn't a date," he said quickly.

"It's not?" Ianto asked. His stomach sank, though he tried to keep the sudden coldness from showing in his voice.

"Well, I mean- it can be. If, you wanted it to be?"

Ianto smiled a bit evilly. "I do believe you're flustered, sir."

Jack's eyes darkened. "I take back what I said about the sir, just don't use it in front of the team."

Ianto laughed.

"So, was that a yes?"

"Yes, yes," Ianto answered. Then he chuckled. "I can't believe it was in question. This dinner is so much a date it's almost a cliché."

"Hey, I'm very original!" Jack protested.

Ianto quirked an eyebrow. "You brought me flowers, wore a suit, picked me up at eight, opened doors for m- Hey!" he realized. "That makes me the woman!"

He sent Jack a murderous look when the man laughed.

"You people and your quaint little labels." Jack grinned. "Why can't we both be the woman?"

After they'd both taken a few bites of their food, Ianto struggling not to roll his eyes over the pasta, Jack spoke up thoughtfully.

"You know, I didn't think you would swing my way, all those months ago."

"Would it have made a difference?" Ianto asked, honestly curious.

Jack considered it. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Although," he said apologetically, "I doubt it."

"I thought no less. It'd be a sad day if the Captain of Torchwood Three made his decisions with the wrong brain."

"I never would," Jack said firmly. "I'd hate myself if I hired someone based on looks and it got them killed."

Ianto nodded. "I can see that."

A waited came with their desserts. Ianto was trying a sticky chocolate cake with cherry sauce while Jack, who apparently had tried most things on the menu, went with homemade ice cream.

"I gotta ask," Jack tried to say after a minute. "Why-"

"Food."

Jack swallowed. "I gotta ask," he repeated in a clearer voice. "Why John? I mean, really?"

Ianto tensed. As comfortable as he was talking about normal things with Jack, or at least good at faking it, even the small talk with his boss was hard. He didn't think he was comfortable discussing anything serious with Jack yet. They did have seven months of absent trust to make up for, after all.

"He was attractive, and kind. I didn't think it through, to be honest."

Jack watched him carefully. "I warned you about him. Did you listen?"

"He turned out quite different than you made him out to be," Ianto said indifferently, taking another bite of his cake.

"How so?"

Ianto checked, but Jack didn't seem to be mocking him, or humoring him. He decided to take a leap of faith. "I think that was the first time I admitted to myself that I was actually bisexual."

Jack nodded, but otherwise didn't react. "And why is that?"

"He was… fun. I felt comfortable with him. And he made it seem so easy, to be the way that he was. Open, I mean," he explained thoughtfully. "I didn't think I could feel like that with a man." He gave Jack a shy smile. "I have begun to learn better, though."

Jack returned the smile and reached out to hold Ianto's hand over the table.

The Welshman cleared his throat. "Let me have a toast?" he requested. Jack, looking curious, nodded.

Ianto collected himself. "No more Ianto the London spy, no more lying about what I am. No more closet, no more denying _who_ I am. To a whole new definition of me!"

Jack gave him a beautiful smile and clicked their wine glasses together. "Amen to that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Thank you so much, dear readers, for sticking with me through this. The original run of this story on ff.net had a lot of flame going on, lots of bashing and more discord than any story I've ever posted, and it's been lovely here, for the most part, with people not hating too much on anyone. Y'all are wonderful!
> 
> There is a sequel that I planned out and started ages ago, but never finished, and tbh I've moved away from Torchwood quite a bit. My question is would anyone like to see those sequel-y bits, even if it's mostly just fluffy/angsty scenes and character development and no real plot? It's like 8.3k.
> 
> Clearly, the best thing to do is subscribe to me as an author. *whistles innocently*


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